Related papers: On the competition for ultimately stiff and strong…
A concept of a planar modular mechanical metamaterial inspired by the nature's principle of local adaptivity is proposed. The metamaterial consists of identical pieces similar to jigsaw puzzle tiles. Their rotation within assembly provides…
Exploring the dynamical response of mechanical metamaterials has gathered increasing attention in the last decades, enabling the design of microstructures exotically interacting with elastic waves (focusing, channeling, band-gaps, negative…
Asymptotic post-buckling theory is applied to sizing and topology optimization of trusses and frames, exploring its potential and current computational difficulties. We show that a designs' post-buckling response can be controlled by…
We consider shape optimization problems for elasticity systems in architecture. A typical question in this context is to identify a structure of maximal stability close to an initially proposed one. We show the existence of such an…
Combinatorial mechanical metamaterials are made of anisotropic, flexible blocks, such that multiple metamaterials may be constructed using a single block type, and the system's response depends on the frustration (or its absence) due to the…
A crucial challenge in engineering modern, integrated systems is to produce robust designs. Ensuring robust design is difficult because subsystem couplings produce unpredictable response to changes in whole system specifications. Here, we…
Slow dynamic nonlinearity is widely observed in brittle materials with complex heterogeneous or cracked microstructures. It is seen in rocks, concrete and cracked glass blocks. Unconsolidated structures show the behavior as well: aggregates…
The geometry of bending-active kirigami arches, decorated by cuts and holes, is strongly influenced by the location and geometry of the perforations. This study demonstrates that, in some instances, the geometric stiffening induced by…
Optimization of large structures of multiple components is essential to many industries for minimizing mass, especially the design of aerospace vehicles. Optimizing a single primary load member independently of all other primary structures…
The inclusion of rigid elements into elastic composites may lead to superior mechanical properties for the equivalent elastic continuum, such as, for instance, extreme auxeticity. To allow full exploitation of these properties, a tool for…
Hierarchically designed mechanical metamaterials involve nested levels of structural organization, mimicking natural structures (such as bones, wood, and bird feathers) to create advanced functional materials. Compositional hierarchy, a…
Truss structures composed of members that work exclusively in tension or in compression appear in several problems of science and engineering, e.g., in the study of the resisting mechanisms of masonry structures, as well as in the design of…
Nematic elastomers are rubbery solids which have liquid crystals incorporated into their polymer chains. These materials display many unusual mechanical properties, one such being the ability to form fine-scale microstructure. In this work,…
In this work, we study the mechanics of metamaterial sheets inspired by the pellicle of Euglenids. They are composed of interlocking elastic rods which can freely slide along their edges. We characterize the kinematics and the mechanics of…
Natural hard composites like human bone possess a combination of strength and toughness that exceeds that of their constituents and of many engineered composites. This augmentation is attributed to their complex hierarchical structure,…
Acoustic metamaterials and phononic crystals represent a promising platform for the development of noise-insulating systems characterized by a low weight and small thickness. Nevertheless, the operational spectral range of these structures…
In this paper, first the non-standard limit analysis 2D problem for reinforced masonry structures is suitably reformulated, giving a innovative computational framework for the evaluation of the strengthening effects of tensile…
The design of desired behaviors in mechanical metamaterials has produced remarkable advances but has generally neglected two aspects - the inevitable presence of undesired behaviors and the role of dynamics in avoiding such behaviors.…
Mechanical metamaterials -- structures with unusual properties that emerge from their internal architecture -- that are designed to undergo large deformations typically exploit large internal rotations, and therefore, necessitate the…
Homogenization of the incremental response of grids made up of preloaded elastic rods leads to homogeneous effective continua which may suffer macroscopic instability, occurring at the same time in both the grid and the effective continuum.…