Tunable Cellular Structures with Damping for Industry-Ready Dynamic Load Management in Bus Applications

Sustainable mobility has been an emerging topic in recent years, and in this regard, investing heavily in public transport seems to be the best solution. For people to embrace this form of mobility, services must meet expectations, and one of the parameters to be considered is the comfort offered by vehicles. This is directly affected by the vibrations that affect vehicles. This work was developed to create a proof of concept for a support structure for bus seats that mitigates the vibrations felt by passengers, making these vehicles more comfortable and appealing to use. Current systems are expensive and complex, and the proposed solution presented here is based on the field of metamaterials. This study investigated vehicle dynamic loads and comfort standards from ISO 2631 to design a metamaterial-based seat support with optimized stiffness and damping. Using MATLAB (R2024b), ideal parameters were defined (k = 13,422.66 N/m, c = 534.07 Ns/m), with stiffness provided by the cell geometry and damping provided by a viscoelastic material. Parametric modeling and simulations in ANSYS (2025 R2) assessed stiffness, damping, and strength, followed by prototype fabrication and testing. The best structure showed 2.23 m/s2 at 4.5 Hz, achieving the target transmissibility above 8 Hz. While most designs effectively attenuate vibrations beyond 5 Hz, resonance peaks remain high, suggesting future work should focus on improved resonance reduction strategies.