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Updated: Jan 21, 2026

Characterizing Dissipative Elastic Metamaterials Produced by Additive Manufacturing
Published on: June 28, 2024
Focusing and Mode Separation of Elastic Vector Solitons in a 2D Soft Mechanical Metamaterial
Bolei Deng1, Chengyang Mo2, Vincent Tournat1,3
1Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA.
Abstract:
Soft mechanical metamaterials can support a rich set of dynamic responses, which, to date, have received relatively little attention. Here, we report experimental, numerical, and analytical results describing the behavior of an anisotropic two-dimensional flexible mechanical metamaterial when subjected to impact loading. We not only observe the propagation of elastic vector solitons with three components-two translational and one rotational-that are coupled together, but also very rich direction-dependent behaviors such as the formation of sound bullets and the separation of pulses into different solitary modes.
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