Architectured Materials

Role of structure at mesoscale

• Mesoscale (intermediate between material continuum and the size of its constituent
blocks).
• Can lead to non ordinary behavior in bulk materials (within a linear framework):
• Auxetics (negative Poisson’s ratio) applications:
• Anchoring
• Enhanced indentation resistance
• Enhanced fracture thougness
• Increase thickness under int. pressure
• Synclastic curvature
• Smart bandages (drug release)
 Architectured Materials

Role of structure at mesoscale

• Mesoscale (intermediate between material continuum and the size of its constituent
blocks).
• Can lead to non ordinary behavior in bulk materials (within a linear framework):
• Cloaking (optical, acoustic, mechanical):

Flexural-wave amplitude, homogeneus membrane clamped at center

 Architectured Materials

Role of structure at mesoscale

• Within a non-linear framework:
• Buckling based metamaterials:
• Periodic buckling (auxetic)
• Reversible folding of curved structures
• Movement of biological systems
• Microfluid pump
 Architectured Materials

Role of structure at mesoscale

• Within a non-linear framework:
• Origami-inspired materials (scale-free):
• Coexistence of positive-negative Poisson’s ratio
• Allows programmable bi-states
 Architectured Materials

Perspectives to design
• Design material starting from desired properties (inverse problem)
• Topology optimization has branched out from structural mechanics to many other
fields (material design, bone replacements, etc.), but is not well suited when
geometrically nonlinearities dominate (such as buckling presented before).
• Genetic and evolutionary design algorithms.
• Exploration of parameter space by computational power.

Plastic surgery and Civil Eng., University of Illinois (2010)

 Architectured Materials

Perspectives to design
• Parameter space: set of all possible combinations for all parameters contained in a
mathematical model.
• Ongoing debate about balance between brute force computational approach to
optimization and intuition-driven explorations of the parameter space.
• Further development of design algorithms to deal with the inverse problem
efficiently.
• Combination of systematic exploration of parameter space, topology optimization
and artificial evolution algorithms has been used to develop intuition and a deeper
understanding of the emergence of effective properties in complexly structured matter.
 Architectured Materials

Perspectives to design
• One example of the approach to the inverse problem (O. Sigmund, 1995):
• Uses numerical homogenization
• Applies topology optimization with a simple approach (groundstructure)
 Architectured Materials

Bio-inspired materials
• Biomimetic Body armors (MIT media lab)
 Architectured Materials

Bio-inspired materials
• Dual-material with tunable properties for tissue-mimicking phantoms (Georgia Tech.)

Fiber designs: a) sinusoidal, b) double helix, c) interlocking chain

 Architectured Materials

Bio-inspired materials
• Dual-material with tunable properties for tissue-mimicking phantoms (Georgia Tech.)

a) Typical regions of response in soft tissue: A – toe – B elastic – C plastic – D failure.

b) Zoomed strain range of interest for most tissue phantoms

• Reported strain stiffening up to 8%, theoretically unachieved using just a single polymer
material.