Session: 01-02-03 Adaptive and Multifunctional Structures III

Paper Number: 110801

110801 - Deployable Mechanical Metamaterials With Multistep Programmable Transformation 

Programmable materials that morph their internal architecture for actuation abound in nature and are of interest for robotics and biomedical devices. These applications benefit from engineered materials with microstructures that can encode shape reconfigurations and topological protections and that can drive high strength-to-density ratios and unusual mechanical behaviors such as negative Poisson ratios. Single transformation materials are now widespread in engineering based on macroscale folding including deployable structures such as folding tables, vascular stents, flexible electronics, and solar panels for spacecraft. However, these systems are typically limited to either a single mode of transformation that must be locked in during fabrication or, instead, require complicated actuation or control for mode switching, e.g., coupled rotation and stretching. 

We therefore sought to develop a multimodal and reprogrammable material system. We were inspired by 3D polyhedral origami with periodic space-filling tessellation, in which initial 3D architectures can be reconfigured into multiple 3D modes and by modular kirigami metamaterials that can be transformed into versatile configurations. Here, inspired by the multistability and programmability of kirigami-based self-folding elements, a robust framework is introduced for the construction of sequentially programmable and reprogrammable mechanical metamaterials. The materials can be locked into multiple stable deployed configurations and then, using tunable bistability enabled by temperature-responsive constituent materials, return to their original reference configurations or undergo mode bifurcation. The framework provides a platform to design metamaterials with multiple deployable and reversible configurations in response to external stimuli. 

Presenting Author: Zhiqiang Meng Tsinghua University

Presenting Author Biography: Zhiqiang Meng is a PhD student at Tsinghua University. His research focus is reconfigurable mechanical metamaterials and soft robots. He has published several papers in journals such as Science Advances, Nature Communications, and Journal of Mechanics and Physics of Solids.

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