Oligomodal metamaterials with multifunctional mechanics

Area of Science:

• Materials Science and Engineering
• Mechanical Engineering
• Physics of Materials

Background:

• Mechanical metamaterials offer advanced functionalities like negative Poisson's ratio and shape shifting.
• Existing flexible metamaterials are typically monomodal (single response) or pluripotent (many responses requiring complex control).
• A need exists for metamaterials with multiple, selectively controllable mechanical properties.

Purpose of the Study:

• To introduce and demonstrate a new class of oligomodal metamaterials.
• To enable selective control over distinct mechanical properties within a single metamaterial structure.
• To explore the design space and confirm the multifunctional capabilities of these novel materials.

Main Methods:

• Introduced a combinatorial design space to create various families of metamaterials (monomodal, oligomodal, plurimodal).
• Investigated oligomodal metamaterials capable of encoding a few distinct, controllable properties under uniaxial compression.
• Utilized boundary textures and viscoelasticity to confirm the multifunctional nature of the realized metamaterials.

Main Results:

• Demonstrated oligomodal metamaterials with selectively controllable mechanical responses.
• Realized a metamaterial exhibiting a switchable Poisson's ratio (negative to positive) based on compression rate.
• Confirmed the ability to host multiple distinct mechanical responses within a single, unified structure.

Conclusions:

• Oligomodal metamaterials represent a significant advancement over existing monomodal and pluripotent designs.
• The selective control of multiple mechanical properties opens new avenues for multifunctional materials.
• This work paves the way for the development of advanced, adaptable materials and devices.