TODAY’S PATENT – FRICTION-DAMPING ENERGY ABSORBER

The absorber was invented by Chong-Shien Tsai, patented by the USPTO on the 17^th of April, 2018, bearing the patent number US20170159287A1. (Bridges Patents (Class 14))

The present invention relates to an energy absorber, and more particularly to a friction-damping energy absorber; the stiffness, the damping effect and the deformation of the friction-damping energy absorber can be controlled to provide an automatic adjustment function and adaptive characteristics to separately achieve optimum functions for multiple performance objects at multiple levels of vibrations.

The issue with a conventional absorber is that the core post of the conventional energy absorber of the referenced case is made of lead. The lead core post may be deformed during the earthquake to absorb the vibration energy of the earthquake, and the deformation of the lead core post will generate heat. Therefore, the temperature of the lead core post of the referenced case will rise to about 350° C., which exceeds the melting point of lead, about 327° C., by the repeated deformation during the earthquake, and the high temperature easily causes the melting of the lead core post, and lead is a toxic heavy metal that will impact the environment. The main objective of the invention is to provide a friction-damping energy absorber that can improve the stiffness and the damping effect of the energy absorber and provides a fail-safe mechanism and an automatic adjustment function to separately achieve optimum functions for multiple performance objects at multiple levels of vibrations.