Living systems use soft multilayered protectivestructures like skin or
fruit peel that can not only sustain high dynamic, butalso quasi-static
mechanical loads while being built-up by a small rangeof basic
materials. On the other hand, man-made dampers, builtto suppress
vibrations and protect against impacts, use hardmaterials and soft
materials, such as metals and elastomers, respectively.The latter are
inherently dissipative due to their viscoelasticnature. Their
stress-strain relation with its built-in phase-lag,makes them the
materials of choice for simple and cheap dampingsystems employed in
everyday life. We take inspiration in biologicalinspired dampers and
show simple approaches to damping structures withadjustable stiffness
based on silicone elastomers and discuss materialchoices and
characterization methods.
Forschungs-