Crystolecule newton's cradle
Various intercrystolecular snapping modes can cause high impulse directed mechanical shock waves.
Not yet thermalized and not long waves like a monochromatic phonon.
Crystolecule shoot off as failure mode
This may be a concern for crystoleclues to get shot off and out of machine phase
never to be found again or unpredictably clogging some mechanism elsewhere.
As some high energy event on one end may shoot out an other part of at some other end
where the shock-wave converges to a weakly the a bond to a part is weeak.
Weak bonds particularly include …
★ Contact bonds via vdW forces but only when …
– (A) the shock goes in sliding direction not in surface normal contact separation direction
– (B) there are only very small surface contact patches compared to the size and volume of the part
Note that vdW forces in in surface normal contact separation direction are very strong.
Equivalent to few sparse covalent pin bonds every 10 atoms.
They may be ~100x weaker than covalent bonds but we are dealing with area this square root.
(Intercrystolecular forces)
Then again free wheeling snaps are highly energetic violent events that can reach 10s if not 100s of m/s
And thus likely can even break a sparse pinning with covalent bonds.
This newtons cradle crystolecule shoot-off failure mode can be designed against by …
★ avoiding such events in the first place, none to near while thee are parts that could be shot off
★ locking things stronger together with higher energy barriers as soon as shocks are to expect. See: Clip connectors
… locking up weakly cohesive pre-assemblies with a single common lock
… is a viable option to minimize energy turnover in (dis)assembly. This may increase efficiency or increase speed.
★ picking more resilient geometries
… self centering V and W grooves may do some double duty on this.
… but one can go further with LIFO form closure assembly and
… maybe with coordinate multi hand assembly
Particularly VdW suck-in and suck-on over superlubric interfaces
may give an effect very similar to a classic newtons cradle toy.
Just that instead of macroscale steel balls on strings
it is nano scale diamond cuboids sliding with low friction in a V-groove.
Crystolecuel shoot of as intended result
See page: Free floating crystolecule
It may be difficult to get it just barely ejected and then cruising along very low speed.
Then quantum dispersing its out of machine phase free space trajectory(ies) a bit.
Other crystolecule shoot off mechanisms
An other mechanism that could lead to unintentional disassembly of parts is the accumulation of identical charges.
Particularly positive charges as excess electrons will shoot themselves off when too many.
One should and very likely can design against such accumulating charges.
When assuming presence of such charges strategies to defending againt then may
less or more overlap with the aforementioned strategies
for defending against the Newton's cradle shoot off failure mode.