No. 0034 - Butt Elastic Modulus Material

One night, I saw one of those bicycle seat pad that is made of some gel, sitting on a dinning table. I picked it up to play with it and immediately the thought came to my head, "this material feels like a butt!?!?". I pressed it and poked it; yep, it feels exactly like a butt. Then the idea came to me, why can't everything else (bed, chairs, car seats, etc) be made of material properties (i.e. elastic modulus) that is similar to that of the butt. Let's put on our engineering hat and hear out my theory. For those readers that have an engineering background, correct me when you think I'm teaching blasphemy.

Recently at work, I've been doing this analysis that involves creating a 2-D non-linear FEA (finite element analysis) model in order to study some stress distribution of this mechanical connection; in another word, it generates really cool pictures. For the confidential nature of my work, I can't describe in great detail what exactly that I studied on but I can tell you what I've learned from the project that I've never really realized before. Here is what I've learned. I've noticed a trend that when you put two similar materials and press them together and compare that with two dissimilar materials (i.e. one being softer), the one set that has similar material properties tends to experience lesser stress. Whereas in the dissimilar material case, the softer part would deform faster and therefore causing stress risers to show up, especially when the interface is not flat.

I think now is a good time to explain the title of my invention. In one or two sentence, elastic modulus is a good measurement/description of a material's properties. Mathematically speaking, see it as a slope; it is a measurement of the stress that a material feels over the distance that it has deformed from its original shape (strain). Together, they effectively describe how "hard" or "soft" a material really is. Now that you guys are all experts in mechanics of material, you will be able to appreciate the beauty of this invention. I ask again, why don't we make more things out of material that has the elastic modulus value closer to that of our butts?! Let me use an example. Have you ever sat through a high school sporting event at the metal bleachers? Can you remember the pain after the 2 hour long football game? Now you know why it hurts; it is because of the "dissimilar of elastic modulus" between the aluminum bleacher and your butt. The pain came from the stress riser in your butt (the softer material in this case) developed by the hard bleacher seat. Solution: make the seat out of material properties similar to that of your bum.