Static mechanical cloaking and camouflage from disorder.

Area of Science:

• Materials Science
• Mechanical Engineering
• Applied Physics

Background:

• Architected materials are crucial for biomedicine and robotics.
• Disordered materials offer potential advantages over periodic designs, including damage tolerance and isotropy.
• The benefits of irregular material designs require further investigation.

Purpose of the Study:

• To present an irregular growth strategy for engineering mechanical stealth.
• To achieve static cloaking and camouflage with high accuracy.
• To demonstrate the adaptability and reliability of disordered materials.

Main Methods:

• Inspired by stochastic growth rules, an irregular cell-based growth strategy was developed.
• The approach was tested for its ability to achieve cloaking and camouflage under various conditions.
• The framework was extended to three-dimensional scenarios.

Main Results:

• The irregular growth strategy successfully engineered mechanical stealth, achieving static cloaking and camouflage within narrow error tolerances.
• The approach demonstrated adaptability to diverse boundary loads and void configurations.
• Generated cloaks retained camouflage under varied conditions, including mutual camouflage between targets with different void shapes.

Conclusions:

• Irregular material designs can effectively achieve mechanical stealth, overcoming limitations of periodic designs.
• This strategy offers a robust and adaptable method for cloaking and camouflage applications.
• The framework shows potential for multiscale applications in three dimensions.