Anti-shock performance of a cockroach-inspired structure

Shock leads to negative impacts on both engineering practices and human comfort in daily life. Many species in nature possess significant shock resistance capacities. This paper introduces a cockroach-inspired structure (CIS) for effectively isolating large-amplitude shocks. The shock responses of CIS are evaluated using the Runge-Kutta method and assessed by four indices: time history response, energy conversion, shock transmissibility, and shock response spectrum. The numerical results show that the hardening effect induced by CIS leads to a leftward shift phenomenon, which can reduce transient response time and expand shock isolation area. By adjusting the geometric parameters, the damping force can be increased to improve the shock isolation performance; the stored potential energy and converted kinetic energy can be minimized, enabling the payload to quickly stabilize its position. The experimental results show that CIS achieves a significant 91.5% reduction in peak absolute acceleration. In summary, this study lays the groundwork for exploring the potential of insect-inspired structures in mitigating shocks.