Shock Absorbtion in calculators

[deleted-327700]

I don't know a single thing about shock absorption and it's required that our research done so was can write our report now, and we have to have an internet source and .com sites are banned. This is the fourth site I've tried. I can't find anything about shock absorption or how a drop would affect calculators, strength of calculators, etc. All I could find that was helpful was the rate of acceleration for a falling object is thirty-two feet per second and I learned which way to hold the calculator for minimum and maximum air resistance, but these were both from the encyclopedia.

[deleted-249560]

The concept is pretty simple - you provide some material or structure that will convert the kinetic energy from an impact into deforming some material or moving a viscous liquid from one place to another. Very few consumer products have shock absorbers in them but you find it in abundance in things like the black box recorders on planes. Cars use 'crumple zones' that are designed to collapse and absorb the energy to protect the passengers, while the bumpers use oil- and gas-filled shock absorbers to allow the bumper to take a 5MPH impact without damage. Electronic devices might use a rubber mount of some kind to attach a board to the case. Cheap calculators probably don't bother with any of this.

May I ask why calculators? Are you doing this https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... p050.shtml, a project where you use calculators as stand-ins for cellphones in destruction tests? I think you'll find that calculators, like most electronic consumer devices have no actual shock absorbing material in them. They rely on mechanical design to distribute any external shocks away from the more sensitive parts of the device. They also take advantage of the fact that lowering the mass of a dropped object will lessen the damage done to it when it's dropped. Lastly, they're cheap so if you break one it's not a big deal unless you were on your way to a math test.

If it helps there is a lot of information on external protection for devices. You might start with a patent, http://www.google.com/patents/US6616111 and read through that. It makes reference to several other prior art patents that are also worth reading. https://www.google.com/patents/US6201691 is a patent on using shock absorbing material inside a computer to protect specific parts.

It's curious that your school wants internet sources but doesn't allow .com sources. That seriously limits your ability to find out stuff. For example, if I were you I'd contact a calculator manufacturer like Texas Instruments and ask them what design features they build into their product to protect against impact damage. Ask politely and you may get a really useful and interesting reply.

Howard