USA as Represented by Secretary of the Navy

H John Nasrin

Philip John Dudt

Hiren D Balsara

Exemplary inventive practice provides a structure that is attributed with superior resistance to loading. For example, an inventive structure includes two coaxial axisymmetric (e.g., cylindrical) shells and a granulation-filled matrix material occupying the peripheral space between the shells. According to some inventive embodiments, the granulation-filled matrix material has a loading-responsive matrix (e.g., shear-thickening fluid or highly rate-sensitive polymer) and granules dispersed therein. When the inventive structure encounters pressure loading at its exterior shell, the consistency of the loading-responsive matrix becomes thicker or firmer and thereby promotes, among the granules, interactive mechanisms (e.g., friction and/or arching) that reinforce the granulation-filled matrix material. According to some inventive embodiments, the granulation-filled matrix material has a magnetic-field-responsive matrix and magnetizable granules dispersed therein, and is magnetically fortified via application of a magnetic field (e.g., continuously applied where the matrix is magnetorheological fluid, or temporarily applied where the matrix is rheological fluid containing diamagnetic particles).

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North Potomac, MD, United States of America

H John Nasrin