Composites Part B 201 (2020) 108340

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Composites Part B
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/compositesb

Large deformation and energy absorption of additively manufactured

auxetic materials and structures: A review
Jianjun Zhang a, b, Guoxing Lu a, *, Zhong You c
a
Faculty of Science, Engineering and Technology, Swinburne University of Technology, Hawthorn, VIC, 3122, Australia
b
School of Civil Engineering, Tianjin Chengjian University, Tianjin, 300384, China
c
Department of Engineering Science, University of Oxford, Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3PJ, UK

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Different from conventional materials, materials with negative Poisson’s ratios expand laterally when stretched
Auxetic materials longitudinally. Known as ‘auxetic’ materials, the effect means they possess particularly fascinating properties,
Sandwich structures which have recently attracted considerable attention in the literature. A range of auxetic materials has been
Additive manufacturing
discovered, theoretically designed and fabricated. Developments in additive manufacturing (AM) techniques
Plastic deformation behaviour
Energy absorption
enable fabrication of materials with intricate cellular architectures. This paper outlines recent progress in the
development of auxetic materials and structures, and their mechanical properties under quasi-static and dynamic
loading are analysed and summarised. Limited experimental studies on 3D printed auxetic materials and
structures are given more attention, ahead of extensively finite element (FE) simulations. A special focus is
dedicated to their large, plastic deformation behaviour and energy absorption performance, which should be
stressed in their engineering applications; no review paper has yet been found regarding this. Finally, this paper
provides an overview of current study limitations, and some future research is envisaged in terms of auxetic
materials and structures, nano-auxetics and additive manufacturing.

1. Introduction
Over the past several decades, developments in structural engi­
neering design and technology in the aircraft industry—automotive,
sports, and leisure sectors—have demanded new materials to meet
higher engineering specifications [1]. These materials are to possess a
combination of high stiffness and strength with significant weight sav­
ings. Some novel structural materials with negative Poisson’s ratio were
explored [1]. In contrast to the vast majority of materials undergoing a
transverse contraction when stretched in the longitudinal direction, this
material expands in the lateral direction when stretched longitudinally,
or contracts laterally under uniaxial compression (as shown in Fig. 1).
This demonstrates a negative Poisson’s ratio—also known as ‘auxetic’
[2]. These materials demonstrate a series of particular characteristics
over conventional materials, such as excellent indentation resistance [3,
4], high shear stiffness [5,6], remarkable fracture toughness [7,8] and
unique acoustic energy absorption abilities [9,10]. The key to the
auxetic behaviour lies in a negative Poisson’s ratio, provided by the
particular geometry arrangement and specific mechanical deformation
of microstructures of auxetic materials. Such auxetic behaviour enables
a wide range of applications, and various auxetic items were designed,
which often assume a linear behavior of auxetic materials. For examples,
auxetic bandages could make use of auxetic deformation to release drug
suspensions according to the swollen state of the wound [11]. Sandwich
elliptical plates with an auxetic core provides lateral compression of the
artificial intervertebral disk under compressive loading [12]. Using
auxetic tubes as reinforced fibers in composite materials would result in
a higher resistance to fiber pullout [13]. Auxetic effect also makes
auxetic materials a good choice as cushion pads by evenly distributing
stress/force [14], which is beneficial to prevent injuries in high-risk
individuals such as the elderly, the disabled, military personnel and
athletes. Additionally, auxetic deformation can be utilised for the design
of fasteners (gaskets and seals) [15], antivibration glove [16], auxetic
armour [17] and other medical engineering [18,19].
Auxetic research began with the proposal of a framework structure
containing a negative Poisson’s ratio [20]. Auxetic foams were first
manufactured by inducing cell ribs protruding inward permanently in
traditional open-cell foams, resulting in a re-entrant structure [21].
Since the thermo-mechanical process (or volumetric compression of
conventional foams) was used for polymer foams [21] and developed

* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: glu@swin.edu.au (G. Lu).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compositesb.2020.108340
Received 5 April 2020; Received in revised form 28 July 2020; Accepted 4 August 2020
Available online 27 August 2020
1359-8368/© 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
J. Zhang et al.
Fig. 1. Schematic diagrams of (a) conventional materials with a positive
Poisson’s ratio and (b) auxetic materials with a negative Poisson’s ratio under
tensile loading (Solid line and dash line respectively describe the materials
before and after deformation).
further by Refs. [22], Choi and Lakes [23] and Friis et al. [24] did so to
fabricate auxetic metallic foams. Other fabrication processes such as
multi-phase auxetic fabrication [25,26] were then developed and
modified [27]. Subsequently, researchers managed to purposely fabri­
cate a wide range of synthetic auxetic materials covering all major
classes, such as metals [23,24], polymers [28], textile [29], composites
[30], ceramics [31] and even biomaterials [32]. However, the conven­
tional manufacturing methods can only be used to fabricate regular
auxetic materials, cannot tailor geometries of materials according to the
desired physical properties, and are difficult to employ in manufacturing
Fig. 2. A schematic diagram of a typical force-displacement curve of energy-absorbing materials and structures in dynamic compression, together with a series of
sequential deformation patterns of a hexagonal aluminium honeycomb under in-plane impact at V = 70 m/s [41].
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Composites Part B 201 (2020) 108340
on a commercial scale. As such, additive manufacturing (AM) becomes a
substitute for conventional processing methods. For example, selective
laser melting (SLM) or electron beam melting (EBM) techniques [33,34]
were employed to print auxetic materials, and the direct laser writing
method (DLW) [35,36] also found used. The development of AM (briefly
discussed in Section 3) has since spurred the commercial viability of
idealized auxetic materials.
Energy-absorption performance is an important mechanical property
for energy-absorbing materials and structures. Essentially, this process
sees materials/structures convert input kinetic energy into another sort
of energy—usually heat through plasticity, viscosity, visco-elasticity or
friction. Meanwhile, energy-absorption performance of materials and
composite structures is significantly affected by deformation modes,
loading conditions, hybrid structural components, material properties
and hybrid configurations [37–39]. Although the design and selection of
such materials/structures can vary notably from one application to
another, some fundamental principles are generally valid and can serve
as guidelines [40]. Fig. 2 shows a schematic diagram of a typical
force-displacement curve of energy-absorbing materials in dynamic
compression, together with dynamic deformation patterns of a honey­
comb sample as an example [41]. The curve includes three stage­
s—elastic stage, in which the deformation of the material is elastic and
reversible; the plateau stage, in which the reactive force keeps almost
constant for a long stroke because of irreversible plastic deformation;
and the final stage, in which the crushing force rises steeply. The shaded
area enclosed under the curve characterises total energy absorption,
which is expected to be as large as possible. Specific energy absorption
(SEA) —energy absorption per unit mass—is a common index for eval­
uating the energy absorption performance. To achieve high SEA, a long
stroke is preferable for an energy absorber to experience more plastic
deformation along the loading direction. Further, the peak force should
be kept below a threshold that would cause damage or injury. Besides, to
cope with very uncertain working loads, their deformation mode and
energy-absorption capacity should be stable and repeatable to ensure
their reliability in service.
J. Zhang et al.
Energy-absorption performance is greatly associated with the
deformation mechanisms and the force-displacement relationship of
materials and structures. To use auxetic materials for energy-absorbing
purposes, their mechanical behaviour should be comprehensively and
systematically explored and understood.
Mechanical properties of materials with negative Poisson’s ratios
have recently attracted considerable academic attention, discussed
further in Section 2. To date, extensively studies have been conducted by
employing finite element (FE) analysis, concentrating mainly on the
small deformation elastic properties of diverse negative Poisson’s ratio
materials [8,27,42–47], particularly their elastic moduli and elastic
Poisson’s ratio [5,6,27,42–44,48]. Meanwhile, some analytical work has
been performed [34,43,44,49–52].
For auxetic materials with large deformation, the mechanical
behaviour of re-entrant honeycomb [53], re-entrant foam [54], hierar­
chical re-entrant honeycomb [55] under impact loading, and
two-dimensional (2D) elastoplastic lattices in tension [56] was numer­
ically simulated. Also, sandwich structures with re-entrant honeycomb
[57–59] and re-entrant foam [60] cores subjected to impact loading
were numerically evaluated. As discovered, auxetic sandwiches are
promising protective structures against impact because they progres­
sively draw materials into the locally loaded zone [57,59]. A few ex­
periments were also conducted on auxetic foams/honeycombs and
associated sandwich structures in quasi-static compression [24,28,44,
61–66], tension [28,67], shear [68] and indentation [69,70]. Further,
some low-velocity [65,71–77] and relative high-velocity [74,78] impact
tests were performed to explore their energy absorption properties or for
their feasible sports benefits. Experimental results revealed that special
geometries of auxetic structures result in stiffening of the material in the
impact zone at subcritical loading velocity, which is advantageous in
impact engineering.
To date, numerous reviews into auxetic materials have been pub­
lished. Some outline their diverse conventional fabricating [27,79–82]
and additive manufacturing [83–87] processes, their elastic mechanical
properties and kinematic mechanisms [27,88–91], and their applica­
tions in sports engineering [62,84], tissue engineering [92], aerospace
and defence applications [93,94]. Researchers have described work
emerging at the intersection of auxeticity and micro-/nano-structured
materials [90,95,96], including their mechanical properties and
multi-dimensional fabrication, as well as structural and performance
characterisation. Also, for sandwich structures with auxetic cores, Bir­
man and Kardomatea [97] summarised their modern trends in theo­
retical developments, novel designs and applications.
However, no one review has yet to concentrate on the large, plastic
deformation behaviour of auxetic materials and structures, particularly
their energy-absorption capacities. Therefore, the objective of this paper
is to analyse current studies regarding their deformation mechanisms
and energy absorption abilities. The most recent work published at the
time of writing is considered, with older sources referenced only on an
as-needed basis. The review first retrieves recent development of auxetic
materials and structures, addressing their mechanical properties
together with various geometrical topologies in Section 2, and additive
manufacturing in Section 3. Then, particular attention is paid to their
large, plastic deformation and energy-absorption performance by pick­
ing up some closely related experimental studies from materials to
structures and from quasi-static to dynamic loading (Sections 4 and 5,
respectively). Section 6 next provides an overview on auxetic materials
and structures, with Section 7 offering their limitations and possible
future exploitations of the auxetic family, together with additive
manufacturing. Section 8 at last briefly concludes the analysis.
2. Auxetic materials/structures and sandwich structures with
auxetic cores
So far, enormous progress has been made to enable auxetic effect of
various advanced materials, both at a macroscopic level and at a
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Composites Part B 201 (2020) 108340
microscopic level. Generally, auxeticity mechanisms can be delineated
as intrinsic or extrinsic. The extrinsic mechanism features structural
modifications of materials in some fashion due to external stimuli, which
has been used to induce auxeticity into bulk or macroscale materials. For
bulk materials, the key to the auxetic behaviour lies in a particular ge­
ometry arrangement and specific mechanical deformation of micro­
structures of auxetic materials [12]. Patterning is a change of materials’
structure, which has been widely employed. Since Kolpakov [20] pro­
posed an auxetic framework with a negative Poisson’s ratio, numerous
auxetic materials with diverse two-dimensional (2D) and
three-dimensional (3D) patterns were subsequently designed, as shown
in Fig. 3 (for 2D patterns) and Fig. 4 (for 3D patterns). These include
re-entrant [36,98], semi-rigid [99–101], chiral [42,102,103], star [104,
105], arrowhead [106,107], missing ribs auxetic [108,109], hybrid
auxetic [102,110] and some other geometrical topologies [111–113].
For further details of classification of auxetic patterns, see the review
papers [79,80,82,88,89,91]. In contrast to extrinsic mechanisms, the
intrinsic mechanism underpins auxeticity without any external engi­
neering of the material structure or composition [96], which is typically
used to describe the mechanism of two-dimensional nanomaterials such
as black phosphorus [114], monolayer graphene [115] and tetra-silicene
[116,117]. For example, a negative Poisson’s ratio in single-layer black
phosphorus stems from its puckered atomic structure [114]: assuming
all atoms are initially in a plane, in-plane movement of atoms (in-plane
tension) will result in puckering (out-of-plane movement) of atoms of
single-layer black phosphorus. Since auxetic mechanisms of
two-dimensional nanomaterials are beyond the scope of this paper, they
are not comprehensively explored. Details associated with microscopic
auxetic materials are given in Refs. [82,90,95,96].
Regarding the mechanical properties of materials with negative
Poisson’s ratios, extensive studies have been conducted by employing FE
methods to investigate their small deformation elastic properties [8,27,
42–47,82,120], particularly their elastic moduli and elastic Poisson’s
ratio [5,6,27,42–44,82]. These studies concluded that the mechanical
properties of re-entrant honeycombs were very sensitive to cell geom­
etries (cell wall length, wall thickness and internal cell angle) [121].
Effective stiffness, Poisson’s ratio and cell opening mechanisms of
auxetic structures can be tuned in a very wide range by tailoring the cell
size ratio and stiffness ratio of component materials [102], or by alter­
nating cuboid surface indents on the vertical ribs of the unit cells [45]. A
large magnitude of Poisson’s ratios including both positive and negative
values was obtained in experimental measurements [122].
Auxetic structures usually experience large deformation when
serving as energy-absorption components such as a bumper. Nonlinear
deformation behaviour results from the plastic deformation or great
change of geometry. Therefore, the responses such as deformation and
Poisson’s ratio may be vastly different. To interrogate the large defor­
mation behaviour—especially the deformation mechanisms, Poisson’s
ratio, crushing strength and energy-absorption capacity—of auxetic
materials, some numerical, analytical and experimental research has
been performed and is summarised as follows.
Currently, most analytical modelling studies were performed on
elastic properties of auxetic materials [34,42–44,49,50,123]. By
considering the deformation of re-entrant cells (e.g. flexure, stretching
and hinging) Master and Evans [49] evaluated the elastic constants of
honeycombs, such as tensile moduli, shear moduli and Poisson’s ratio. A
model based on bending stiffness of single ribs was developed for auxetic
tubes to estimate Poisson’s ratios and uniaxial stiffness, as well as their
Eulerian buckling load [124]. Yang et al. [34,44] predicted the modulus,
Poisson’ ratio and yield strength of re-entrant honeycombs, based on the
Timoshenko’s beam model. Berinskii [50] proposed a model determine
in-plane effective elastic properties of re-entrant honeycomb, which
demonstrated that change of cell angles triggers cells switching from
auxetic to non-auxetic and leads to the qualitative change of effective
elastic properties of auxetic materials. This agrees with the statement
[125]: most of the differences in mechanical properties of re-entrant
J. Zhang et al. Composites Part B 201 (2020) 108340

Fig. 3. Typical 2D topologies for auxetic materials: (a) re-entrant structure; (b) 2D hierarchical re-entrant unit cells with Voronoi substructures [118]; (c) arrowhead
structure [14]; (d) A 2D representation of a functionally graded bulk solid changing from top auxetic Double Arrowheads to bottom conventional Double Arrowheads
[107]; (e) unit of hierarchical systems based on the rotating rigid units mechanism [100]; (f) star shape [89]; (g) repeatable unit of a chiral structure [103]; (h) an
auxetic perforated system made up of perpendicularly arranged alternating slits which mimics the behaviour of a rotating squares system [101]; (i) auxetic structures
with circular stiff inclusions [113]; (j) Geometric models for the isotropy bi-material chiral auxetic metamaterials: unit cell and 8 × 16 periodic array [119].

Fig. 4. Typical 3D patterns: (a) re-entrant foam [54]; (b) semi-rigid structure [99]; (c) Three-dimensional unit cell of a cubic lattice [111]; (d) Bucklicrystals unit
(building blocks with 6 and 12 holes) [112].

foams in comparison with those of conventional foams was associated
with the change in cell shape from convex to concave. Also, the shear
modulus of re-entrant honeycombs is determined by cell geometry, not
always higher than that of conventional honeycombs [43]. Besides, out
previous work systematically analyses the post-yield behavior of
re-entrant honeycombs in the two principal directions, by considering
the plastic, nonlinear behaviour of cell walls based on idealized mech­
anisms [126]. Two material models were used, a rigid-perfectly plastic
material model and that with strain hardening; and the analytical
models in general agrees with FE results. Also, it was revealed that
elastoplastic lattices in uniaxial tension include three deformation re­
gimes [56]: (i) initial linear elastic regime, (ii) plastic collapse regime as
a result of cell wall bending or stretching, and (iii) post-lock-up
stretching-dominated regime due to rotation of the inclined struts to­
wards the macroscopic loading direction.
By means of FE simulations, energy absorption of re-entrant hon­
eycombs [53], re-entrant foams [54] and hierarchical re-entrant hon­
eycombs [55] to impact loading were investigated. As found,
energy-absorption capacity is improved by increasing the cell angle
[53]; however, the SEA of re-entrant foams is lower than that of con­
ventional foams [54]. Further, loading velocities significantly influence
materials’ negative Poisson’s ratio effect under in-plane impact. Three
deformation modes were classified for re-entrant star-shaped honey­
combs: low-velocity, medium-velocity and high-velocity modes [127,
128]. Transverse contractions of the material were mostly observed at
the early stage of crushing under low-velocity and medium-velocity
impact [127,129]. There is also a critical impact velocity beyond
which the dynamic stress of double arrowhead honeycombs is insensi­
tive to auxetic effect [128]. The responses of re-entrant hexagonal and
re-entrant trichiral honeycombs to out-of-plane bending were also

4
J. Zhang et al.
simulated [130]: evidently, honeycombs present synclastic (dome-s­
haped) curvature deformation. Also, cell-angle gradient was considered
for re-entrant honeycombs [131]. It was found that a quasi-static or low
velocity, the angle graded design could always improve energy ab­
sorption; as the impact speed increases, that is enhanced only when the
crushing direction is along the structural weak-to-strong direction.
Additionally, octagonal honeycombs with missing cell walls were
simulated to mimic the stress concentration due to defects in the AM
process [132].
The dynamic responses of sandwich structures with re-entrant hon­
eycomb [57–59] and re-entrant foam [60,133] cores at impact were
numerically evaluated. The auxetic sandwich panel performs better than
the sandwich panels with conventional foam cores in terms of ballistic
resistance [59] and blast resistance [57,58,134]. This is because the
auxetic sandwich effectively adapts to the dynamic loading by pro­
gressively drawing material into the locally loaded zone, due to the
core’s negative Poisson’s ratio effect [57,59,135]. Therefore, auxetic
sandwich structures offer promising protection against impact loading.
Impact velocity also affects the ballistic limit and perforation energy of
auxetic sandwich panels, both of which are governed by face and core
thicknesses and core density [59]. For the purpose of air blast protec­
tion, double-V auxetic foams were designed and used for cores of
sandwich panels, instead of the in-plane anisotropic auxetic honey­
combs [136]. Further, parametric optimisations were conducted for
design to improve the explosion-proof performance of auxetic sandwich
doors [137] and auxetic cores [136,138–140], and crashworthiness
performance of auxetic tubes [141,142].
Excluding extensive FE simulations, experimental studies have also
been conducted on the mechanical behaviour of auxetic materials and
structures. By using the traditional fabrication methods, auxetic mate­
rials and structures were manufactured and tested in quasi-static
compression [24,28,61–63,143], tension [28], shear [68], indentation
[69,70] and impact [62,63,135]. It was found that auxetic foam-filled
square tubes are superior to empty and conventional foam-filled
square tubes in terms of crashworthiness indicators [143] and energy
absorption capacity [61], also confirmed by the improved specific en­
ergy absorption of foam filled re-entrant structures [144]. However,
extreme Poisson’s ratios of auxetic foam-filled conic tubes should be
avoided in engineering applications due to the high peak force of
extreme cases [145]. Auxetic foams have a wider indentation than
conventional foams under sphere- and cylinder-shaped indenters [69],
as the material was drawn to the local indented zone due to auxetic
effect. Further, dynamic impact of open-cell auxetic polyurethane (PU)
foam was examined [71–73]. Scarpa [73] and Duncan [62] found that
auxetic foams exhibit superior performance to conventional foams in
terms of damping properties, acoustic properties, and dynamic crushing.
To explore how auxetic materials could be useful to sports equipment
with a focus on injury prevention, some impact investigations were
conducted [62,63,75,76]. Auxetic foams exhibited higher force attenu­
ation [62] and lower peak acceleration [63] than their conventional
counterparts. Therefore, they have potential use for impact protector
devices, such as shin or thigh protectors in sports equipment applica­
tions. Additionally, it should be noted that to obtain accurate responses
of auxetic sandwich structures, one must include the effect of prior
fabrication processes and the associated changes of core-material
microstructure, cellular architecture and built-in stresses [146].
Although auxetic materials are difficult to manufacture on a com­
mercial scale [1], increasing the design of various topologies with
auxetic effect might eventually yield a commercially acceptable struc­
ture regarding manufacturability and performance. The surge of
so-called ‘designer materials’ during the last few years, together with
recent advances in AM techniques that enable the fabrication of mate­
rials with arbitrarily complex macro-/micro-/nano-scale architectures
(as presented in Fig. and 6), have attracted increasing attention to a
concept of mechanical metamaterials [88]. Accompanied by the devel­
opment of AM, it is optimistic to foresee the progress and production of
5
Composites Part B 201 (2020) 108340
more innovative auxetic materials and structures with tailored
properties.
By employing AM techniques, auxetic materials were fabricated and
tested in quasi-static compression [44,64,65], quasi-static tension [67]
and dynamic impact [74]. In quasi-static compression, re-entrant foams
feature two failure modes that depend on the ratio of vertical strut
length to re-entrant strut length [64]. Their mechanical response was
greatly affected by the porosity and loading direction [65]. In uniaxial
tension, the stress-strain curve of re-entrant honeycombs includes three
stages [67] —the initial elastic stage, plateau stage and the final stage
with a rapid increase in stress, like that of conventional foam­
s/honeycombs in compression [41,147,148]. Low-velocity impact [65],
split-Hopkinson pressure bar (SHPB) [78] and Taylor impact (using a
powder gun) [74] experiments were conducted on re-entrant materials.
Strain-rate sensitivity of sintered auxetic structures was identified [78],
comparable with the SHPB results of printed bulk materials [149,150].
Different from the temperature incurred ‘softening’ effect into polymer
[151], the energy absorption of cellular structures printed using Nylon
12 does not significantly correlate with the temperature (93 ◦ C v. 121
◦
C) [152]. Additionally, auxetic nails were designed and their push-in
and pull-out performance was examined: auxetic nails do not always
exhibit superior mechanical performance to nonauxetic ones [153].
Evident from these advanced overviews, so far, only a few dynamic
experiments have been successfully carried out on auxetic materials,
most of which focused on the re-entrant pattern. In addition, no high-
velocity or blast impact tests on auxetic sandwich structures have
been retrieved. Therefore, more experimental work should be done to
comprehensively understand auxetic materials and structures with
multiple geometries and widen their engineering applications.
3. Additive manufacturing
Materials with sophisticated cellular architecture can be fabricated
with many approaches. Notably, thermo-mechanical processing was
applied to manufacture auxetic polymeric foams [21,22] and metallic
foams [23,24], and multi-phase auxetic fabrication was developed for
auxetic foams [25,26]. Alternatively, the interlocking assembly method
was proposed and developed [161,162], which allows for fabricating
periodic auxetic two-dimensional (2D) and three-dimensional (3D)
cellular structures [163]. Meanwhile, auxetic multipods were generated
by dealing with individual multipod constituents instead of individual
cylinders, and arranged in a lattice to avoid falling apart [164]. For some
woven auxetic materials [108], weaving [165], braiding [166] and
knitting [167] were also used to integrate fibres or wires as material. For
some fibre-reinforced plastic composites, particularly non-woven
nanofibrous materials, melt electrospinning has emerged as an alter­
native processing technology to alleviate concerns associated with sol­
vents in traditional electrospinning [168,169]. Currently, this technique
has been extended to an increasing range of synthetic polymers, com­
posite systems and other materials such as ceramics [168]. Architected
materials based on a broad range of thin-film materials can be fabricated
by coating polymer templates [170]. With this approach, architected
materials constructed from hollow ligaments can be fabricated from a
wide variety of metals, polymers, and ceramics. For sandwich structures,
the hot modelling press method [171] and an auto prepreg cutting
machine [172] were used. See Refs. [27,81,168–170] for more
information.
Most experiments related to the large deformation of auxetic mate­
rials and structures were based on the AM process, thus, guiding the
focus in this section to additive manufacturing.
AM (formerly ‘Rapid Manufacturing’) refers collectively to a set of
technologies used to produce end-use parts directly from 3D computer-
aided design models [85]. AM realises direct fabrication of digital
models by employing a layered manufacturing concept, which splits the
3D digital model into layers and generates the predetermined geometry
for each layer [173]. A general fabricating route is that a 3D printer
J. Zhang et al.
prints required structures by following a given program. Since the
first-generation Stereo Lithography (SLA) system was introduced by 3D
Systems in 1986, AM technology has developed into a large family
including many well-known technical processes such as 3D printing,
fused deposition modelling (FDM), selective laser sintering (SLS), se­
lective laser melting (SLM), electron beam melting (EBM), electron
beam freeform fabrication (EBFF), laser engineered net shaping (LENS),
direct metal deposition (DMD), and ultrasonic additive manufacturing
(UAM) [173]. Moreover, current demands of miniaturisation of products
in many industries drive new manufacturing platforms for micro and
nanofabrication technologies [83]. Therefore, many of these tools, such
as dip-pen nanolithography (DPN), direct laser writing (DLW), soft
lithography (SL) and atomic layer deposition (ALD), have been devel­
oped based on the concept of layer-by-layer deposition [173]. Indeed,
different mechanical metamaterials have different steps in fabrication
and assembly. A blueprint is needed before processing, and then an
appropriate technique is required to obtain the desired metamaterials
[86].
AM technology is commercially available and allows nearly unlim­
ited topological complexity without the design constraints of traditional
manufacturing [78,174]. For example, it can produce structures of
arbitrary geometry in a well-defined manner, decrease lead time from
concept to product, and ease design and process modification [175].
Two significant benefits can be achieved from the AM technology [86]:
(i) it allows exploration of beneficial size effect on plasticity and frac­
turing, with potential to dramatically increase the effective mechanical
properties of cellular materials; (ii) it allows the interaction of periodic
structures with visible light, which vastly simplifies the development of
optical, acoustic, thermal and mechanical metamaterials. However, a
widely acknowledged stumbling block in AM progression is the limited
choice of materials [85], which cannot currently meet the multiple re­
quirements of commercial application. Besides the lack of materials,
issues such as surface finish, tolerances and, in particular, process
repeatability, have been overlooked in the AM processing system [78,
85].
Issues associated with AM could significantly affect the mechanical
properties of printed materials and structures; therefore, they must be
incorporated into the design process. Fidelity and accuracy may affect
the volume fraction and distribution of printed materials, while
anisotropy, porosity and imperfections or surface defect also play a role
[44,176]. The effect of fabrication orientations seems insignificant but is
closely related to the design of cellular geometries [152]. Such me­
chanical properties as tensile strength and modulus increase as the build
orientation angle of tensile bars grows. This is because the inter-layer
bonding and the step effect result in some loss of strength for most
polymer AM processes [177].
For laser-based processes, the influence of processing parameters
such as laser power, scan speed and track spacing on the microstructural
and structural integrity as well as the mechanical behaviour should be
assessed. Notably, the tensile strength considerably decreases when the
scanning speed increases, making a lower scanning speed preferable to
control the coalescence among powders in the SLS process [160]. The
laser spot size must also be considered when calculating the tool path,
because it is usually large than the optical footprint [86]. The build of
Ti-rich TiNi alloys generally demonstrates two potential defects:
porosity and cracking induced by residual stress [33], but this could be
minimised through process optimisation. Variations in heat transfer rate
can lead to inhomogeneous distribution of solid metals in structures
[86], so post-process homogenisation treatment is essential to improve
both microstructural homogeneity and ductility [33]. The volume en­
ergy density such as the effect of varying layer thickness, strongly affects
the mechanical performance because it is directly related to the melting
characteristics of polymer materials [178].
For more information on formation methodologies and performances
of AM, refer to Refs. [83,84,86,87]. Details of the set-up process for the
laser sintering systems can be found elsewhere [85,178]. Of note, the
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Composites Part B 201 (2020) 108340
durability of printed products, especially printed sandwich structures, is
an important issue that could affect the applicability of AM processes for
design and manufacturing of structural elements [179]. As a result,
understanding how AM-related defects affect the durability of printed
products demands a series of detailed experimental analyses combined
with numerical predicative damage-evolution models.
4. Responses of auxetic materials/structures
In this section, particular attention is paid to additively manufac­
tured auxetic materials/structures in terms of their large, plastic defor­
mation and energy-absorption performance by picking up some typical
experimental studies. Also, some necessary work is referred to for the
convenience of discussion. These tests are categorised by different
loading conditions into quasi-static and dynamic loading. Often, the
material behaviour and structural response of most materials under
dynamic loading are different from those under quasi-static loading,
which depends on the strain rate defined as the rate of change of strain
with time. For low strain rates, force/stress equilibrium is always
maintained while under higher strain rates, the influence of inertial
forces and the effect of wave propagation increase with the strain rate.
Fig. 7 shows a list of testing techniques and mechanical considerations
for a wide spectrum of strain rates [180]. Quasi-static loading results in
relatively low strain rates in the range 10− 5~10 s− 1. The tests with
low-speed dynamic deformation is in the strain rate range 10~103 s− 1,
with the strain rate range103~105 s− 1 for high-speed dynamic
deformation.
4.1. Quasi-static loading
4.1.1. Re-entrant honeycombs
Zhang et al. [67] conducted quasi-static tensile tests on re-entrant
honeycombs to explore their post-yield behaviour. As expected, when
the sample stretched in the X2 direction, lateral expansion occurs, as
shown in Fig. 8(a) and (b) (ε = 0.275). This indicates a negative Pois­
son’s ratio, until the initially inclined cell walls become horizontal (ε =
0.7). Afterwards, cells shrank in the X1 direction when further stretched
along X2 (ε = 1.1). The sample presents a positive Poisson’s ratio during
this stage, like conventional honeycombs. However, when loaded in the
X1 direction (Fig. 8(c)), the sample shows expansion in both the X1 and
X2 directions until the initially inclined cell walls become vertical and
finally break.
When loaded in the X2 direction (Fig. 8(d)), the stress-strain curve
comprises three stages an elastic stage, a long ‘pseudo-plateau’ stage and
a final stage with force rising rapidly like the compression behaviour of
cellular materials [41,147,148]. This can be reflected in how the
deformation evolved. For a repeatable unit cell of the re-entrant hon­
eycomb, the cell walls initially bend elastically in a linear manner, fol­
lowed by apparent non-linear behaviour resulting from significant
change of geometry. When the bending moment of cell walls reaches the
fully plastic bending moment [40], plastic hinges form and the cell be­
gins to collapse, thus, initiating the plateau stage. With further tension,
the cells shrink laterally, and the stress increases due to reduction in the
length of the moment arm. This final stage is similar to the densification
of conventional honeycombs/foams under compression. Likewise, the
re-entrant honeycomb in the X1 direction is similar to that in the X2
direction, but its final stage stems from the wall stretching instead of
bending. Details of the deformation mechanisms of re-entrant honey­
combs with perfectly plastic or strain hardening hypotheses are given in
Ref. [126].
Furthermore, Dong et al. [181] carried out compression tests on
re-entrant honeycombs loaded in the X1 direction, to reveal the effect of
wall thickness on their deformation modes, negative Poisson’s ratio and
crushing stress. As shown in Fig. 9, deformation of the thin-wall hon­
eycomb is quite different from that of the thick-wall honeycomb: the
thick-walled honeycomb presents vertical V mode, X mode and y mode
J. Zhang et al. Composites Part B 201 (2020) 108340

Fig. 5. Printed samples based on 2D auxetic patterns: (a) re-entrant honeycombs with angle gradient [154]; (b) modified re-entrant and hybrid auxetic structures
(auxetic-strut and auxetic-honeycomb) [155]; (c) Octagonal auxetic metamaterials (octagonal, triangular and quadratic structures) printed using thermoplastic
polyurethane elastomer (TPU) [156]; (d) auxetic structure with arrowhead patterns [14]; (e) specimens of the hybrid auxetic chiral metamaterial [102]; (f) hier­
archal Starchiral structures (PLA material) [157]; (g) 3D printed novel auxetic lattices [158].

as a transition in between, while double horizontal V mode and Z mode
are observed in the thin-wall honeycomb. The thick-walled cells
demonstrate shrinkage deformation and fracture, and the honeycomb
exhibits stable auxetic deformation; however, local shrinkage and
expansion result in an unsymmetrical deformation and thus lead to
unstable deformation of the thin-wall honeycomb during most of the
process. In fact, from the authors view, this difference may attribute to
the friction effect at boundaries, which can also be confirmed by the
stable deformation of both thick-wall and thin-wall samples at a large
strain close to densification. At this point, the crushed thin-wall sample
becomes hard/strong enough to resist friction and is allowed to slip on
the boundary surface, as the strong thick-wall honeycomb. Another
explanation for the deformation difference between the thin-wall and
thick-wall re-entrant honeycombs can be found in the work [182]:
absence of crosslinks between unit cells can improve lateral stability of
thin-wall re-entrant honeycombs (without compromising the auxetic
effect), which attributes to the enhanced lateral support and resistance
to unstable buckling of walls. Additionally, there exists a long stress
plateau of re-entrant honeycombs in compression like the compression
of traditional honeycombs/foams [41,147,148], which is preferable to
energy absorption of materials/structures in relevant applications.
Compared with the short stress plateau of re-entrant honeycomb loaded
in the X1 direction [67], the difference is determined by cell geometries.
In compressive experiments (with the loading rate at 5.0 mm/min) of
steel re-entrant honeycombs [183], the vertical walls first buckle and
then incline to one side as the rotation of neighbouring plastic hinges.
Cell wall rotations characterise shear deformation of the whole sample.
Afterwards, the rotation of plastic hinges induces contact of the vertical
and inclined walls. The sample then dissipates energy through formation
of plastic hinges. Using re-entrant topology, the initial peak force of the
sample decreases while the mean plateau force is enhanced, benefiting
energy-absorbing devices that require low peak force but super energy
absorption.
For cellular structures in compression (with different strain rates
between 0.1 and 7.5 min− 1 or the compression speed from 4 to 300 mm/
min), the induced stresses are a combination of tension, compression
and shear [184]. As the stresses are not equal in all cell walls, a
pre-existing crack in printing or a crack forming during loading might
incur local stress concentration, and then the fracture of cell walls (as
shown in Fig. 10(a)), eventually leading to failure of the whole structure.
To reduce local stress concentration and distribute the load evenly
throughout structures, auxetic-strut honeycombs (Fig. 5(b)) were pro­
posed and tested in in-plane uniaxial compression (at the speed of 2.0
mm/min) [155]. The deformation and failure modes are shown in
Fig. 10(b). They exhibit elastic-plastic collapse behaviour: elastic
bending occurs in cell walls, followed by cell collapse due to elastic
buckling, plastic yielding, creep or brittle fracture. Once the opposing
cell walls begin to touch, cell collapse ends, and another row of cells
behaves in the same way. This repetitive behaviour leads to wavelike
fluctuations of stress in the plateau stage. The auxetic-strut structure has
higher compressive strength and absorbs more energy than honeycombs
and re-entrant structures [155]. The study indicates that changing the
geometrical topology can induce the deformation path, therefore,
allowing us to tailor the failure modes, stress distribution, load carrying,

7
J. Zhang et al. Composites Part B 201 (2020) 108340

Fig. 6. Printed samples based on 3D auxetic patterns: (a) Re-entrant auxetic foams printed by EBM [44]; (b) 3D construction of modified re-entrant design and a unit
cell [159]; (c) Geometry of the auxetic structure from inverted tetrapods (pictures show the inverted tetrapod, 3D auxetic structure and section views) [65,74,139];
(d) Bucklicrystal lattices-the 6-hole and 12-hole units in the cubic crystal systems of the body center cubic (bcc) and the solid center (sc) (the scale bar is 1 cm) [160];
(e) oblique-view electron microscopy images of micro-auxetic metamaterials (First three are triclinic crystals with a four-fold axis and the last one with a six-fold axis)
[36]; (f) auxetic nails with different patterned holes on the wall, printed using brass and stainless steel materials [153].

and particularly energy absorption of the whole structure.
When the wall material chosen for printing appears to be intrinsi­
cally brittle, the printed material generally presents brittle failure.
However, it seems possible to avoid the brittle failure of materials by
precisely tuning parameters such as length-to-diameter ratio, wall
thickness-to-radius ratio and relative density [185]. This is further
confirmed by the compression of Ti–6Al–4V re-entrant foams [64],
where the failure modes depend on the ratio of vertical strut length (H)
to the inclined strut length (L). For a relatively small H/L ratio, since
Ti–6Al–4V exhibits slight ductility before fracture, the critical inclined
strut fractures first and detaches from the structure. Stress is then
re-distributed and the next critical strut within the same layer fractures.
In turn, this pattern eventually leads to failure of the inclined struts in
the entire layer. However, when the H/L ratio is large, the vertical struts
will tend to yield first because of the edge effect as well as the size effect.
Due to compatibility restrictions, the whole layer with the failed vertical
walls starts to displace, as shown in Fig. 11.
4.1.2. Inverted-tetrapod auxetics
Auxetic structures inspired by inverted tetrapods were designed
[186], as shown in Fig. 6(c). Their mechanical properties were explored
under quasi-static compression (at a cross-head rate of 0.1 mm/s) [139],
low-velocity impact (at a loading rate of 284 mm/s or 14.8 s− 1) [65] and
powder gun impact (at the strain rates of 10000 s− 1 and 5000 s− 1) [74].
Due to brittle collapse of the base material (Ti–6Al–4V alloy), responses
of the auxetic structures under quasi-static compression and
low-velocity impact are almost equal, and the strain-rate effect is
negligible; hence, their responses were summarised here, together. See
Section 4.2 for responses at a high loading rate.
As shown in Fig. 12, the stress-strain curves in both loading di­
rections are similar in terms of shape and plateau stress level. However,
their deformation mechanisms are quite different [65,139]. When

8
J. Zhang et al. Composites Part B 201 (2020) 108340

Fig. 7. Schematic classification of testing techniques according to strain rate [180].

Fig. 8. (a) Deformations of the polymer sample in tension and the determination of the longitudinal (blue points) and lateral (orange points) engineering strain
(loaded in the X2 direction); Poisson’s ratios of the samples loaded in the X2 (b) and X1 (c) directions; (d) Engineering stress-strain curves in both loading directions
(loading speed of the cross-head is 3 mm/min) [67]. (For interpretation of the references to colour in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the Web version of
this article.)

loaded in the X2 direction, the deformation is localised in the shear plane
at the beginning and spreads only at larger strains when cells in the shear
plane collapse completely. This shear dominated deformation mode was
also observed in the compression of lattice structures [187] and simu­
lations of re-entrant honeycombs [188]. In contrast, when loaded in the
X3 direction, the sample shows brittle layer-by-layer collapse, resulting
from local buckling and sudden brittle failure of vertical struts, like the
deformation of re-entrant foams in Fig. 11. Due to brittle collapse in the
X3 direction, energy absorption is lower than that in the X2 direction
[139]. Moreover, the deformation mechanisms are affected by the po­
rosities of samples, due to considerable influence of printing imperfec­
tions within thin struts in the sample with high porosity [65].

9
J. Zhang et al.
Fig. 9. Deformation modes and stress-strain curves of thick-wall (left) and thin-wall (right) honeycomb and the corresponding fitted curves (the samples are printed
using AlSi10Mg powder, and the loading rate is 1.0 mm/min) [181].
4.1.3. Bucklicrystals auxetic foams
Bucklicrystals foams, as shown in Fig. 4(d) and Fig. 6(d), were
designed to enable the material retaining auxetic response over a wide
range of deformation [112]. This design enables large geometric non­
linearities produced by buckling instabilities. Such buckling-induced
auxetic behaviour was experimentally examined at a loading rate of 1
mm/s in Ref. [160].
Fig. 13 exhibits the deformation of a repeatable unit and the block of
Bucklicrystals foams in compression. Cells buckle, and the connecting
nodes rotate, which leads to volume shrinkage along two transverse
directions. The foams remain auxetic over a wide range of deformation,
and the behaviour is highly recoverable and repeatable, as thermoplastic
polyurethane (TPU) retains elastomeric properties even after con­
structed with complex 3D geometries by laser sintering. This indicates
that such soft auxetic foams possess great potential for damping, energy
absorption and mechanical actuation. However, in this study the applied
elastic strain is relatively small (within 0.3), which may compromise the
energy absorption capacity, compared with that through large, plastic
deformation. The recoverability under large compressive strain is still
questionable. Therefore, their plastic, large deformation behaviour,
particularly the dynamic responses, should be investigated in future
studies when used as energy absorbers.
4.1.4. Chiral-based auxetics
Some experimental work has been conducted on chiral-based auxetic
materials: these include multi-material-designed chiral honeycombs in
quasi-static tension [102], anti-tetrachiral honeycombs in quasi-static
(10 mm/min) [189,190] and dynamic (5 m/s) [191] compression,
convex-concave foams in quasi-static compression (1 mm/min) [66],
TPU chiral honeycombs under low-velocity impact (with input energy
up to 5 J) [192] and copper chiral foams under high-velocity impact (at
a velocity of 250 m/s) [193].
Investigations into anti-tetrachiral in compression demonstrated that
their deformation modes strongly affect the force-deflection response
[189]. Beyond the elastic stage, local buckling and then plastic collapses
are observed. The collapse occurs via the bending of ligaments and
rotation of corner nodes of anti-tetrachiral lattices. Upper and bottom
rows collapse locally and show a slanting movement (as shown in Fig. 14
(a)). The contact between lattice walls and resistive effect of ligaments
cause a high reaction force and local contact force between unite lattice
walls. To combine the auxetic effect of re-entrant and chiral patterns,
Alomarah et al. [110] developed a hybrid auxetic honeycomb. For this
hybrid honeycomb, the mechanical performance is sensitive to the
loading direction [190,191], similar to the findings of re-entrant hon­
eycombs in tension in different loading direction [67,126]. The hybrid
honeycomb crushed in the Y direction offers higher plateau stress and
10
Composites Part B 201 (2020) 108340
better energy absorption capacity than that loaded in the X direction
[191], the intrinsic reason of which is associated with the allowable
maximum displacement determined by cell geometry. Lateral contrac­
tion of the hybrid honeycomb stems from inward movement of the in­
clined walls and rotation of the cylinders since the hybrid structure
combines the topological features of both patterns, as shown in Fig. 14
(b). It was found that the auxetic effect (negative Poisson’s ratio) of the
hybrid structure compressed in the Y direction is larger than other
honeycombs studied [190,191]. Additionally, it should be pointed out
that it seems a bit arbitrary to state that the anti-tetrachiral lattices
showed better energy absorption capability than modified re-entrant
lattices [189] since their masses may not equivalent, and that the
re-entrant-chiral hybrid structure exhibited larger stress than other
investigated auxetic honeycombs [191] because the relative density of
all printed samples is different.
The failure deformation modes of convex-concave foams in quasi-
static compression are shown in Fig. 15(a). The auxetic effect plays a
great role in the failure modes from the layer-by-layer mode to the shear-
induced X-shape and oblique quadrilateral collapse modes [66]. When
the auxetic effect is weak, stress concentration is prone to occur on the
vertical curved edges and leads to their yielding. As such, the materials
collapse in a sideways manner, same to the failure mechanisms (as
shown in Fig. 10), due to fracture or buckle of vertical cell walls
observed for the re-entrant materials [64,155,192] and conventional
open-cell foams [66]. As the auxetic effect increases, neighbouring
curved cell edges are more prone to contact, and the horizontal slipping
shear occurs in the middle layers. Overall, in the quasi-static mode (as
shown in Fig. 15(b)), the collapse initiates at the weakest point of the
material and is expressed primarily in shear bands. The weakest point in
most strut’s based cellular structures are nodes, where the struts are
connected and where the largest stress concentrations appear due to
significant change in stiffness. After buckling, the failure of chiral foams
starts in the nodes, due to their rotation, and consequently results in
large local strains and stress concentration.
Compared to conventional open-cell foams with equal mass, convex-
concave foams with rational design of the negative Poisson’s ratio could
have the combined advantages of relative high stiffness and strength,
enhanced energy absorption and damage resistance [66]. Compared
with re-entrant lattices, chiral lattices demonstrate higher mean peak
forces, lower mean axial strain and had shorter mean impact duration
[192], indicating greater stiffness in the deformation. Also, the peak
force and maximum axial strain of chiral honeycombs increase with the
impact energy.
J. Zhang et al.
Fig. 10. (a) Optical microscope images of the failure due to (left) fracture of the walls at the nodes and (right) buckling of the wall [184]; (b) Sequence of deformed
configurations during deformation and failure of the samples in quasi-static compression (the wall material for printing is ABS polymer) [155].
4.2. Dynamic loading
Generally, quasi-static behaviour of materials might not represent
their dynamic performance. Mechanical properties based on quasi-static
testing can produce misleading results, and further underestimate or
overestimate the properties valid for the dynamic conditions [194].
Further, cellular structures usually exhibit loading-rate effect and some
wall materials are likewise sensitive to strain rates [195]. Different
deformation modes were observed in the quasi-static and impact
crushing of honeycombs and foams [41,148,196–200]. Therefore, dy­
namic experimental research on auxetic materials has been performed
and is summarised, as follows.
4.2.1. Re-entrant honeycombs
SHPB impact testing was executed on re-entrant structures filled with
strain-rate sensitive materials [78]. The results demonstrate the
11
Composites Part B 201 (2020) 108340
strain-rate sensitivity of sintered auxetic structures and fillings. Fig. 16
plots the stress-strain curves under quasi-static and impact loading, and
the dynamic enhancement of the stress is observed. Also, the SEA of the
samples with filling materials is higher than that without filling, but this
superiority depends on the filling materials chosen.
Deformation of the samples is affected by loading rates, as shown in
Fig. 17. In quasi-static compression, buckling of cell walls is observed,
leading to instability of each cell layer. Therefore, all samples exhibit
shear deformation and lateral distortion. However, the sample in dy­
namic impact presents homogeneous deformation almost without
lateral distortion. This means that the inertia effect plays a role in dy­
namic deformation, also observed in the dynamic tension of re-entrant
honeycombs [201]. Moreover, comparison of the deformation in
Figs. 11 and 17 demonstrates that ductility of the wall material for
printing greatly affects the quasi-static deformation. For the sample
printed with brittle Ti–6Al–4V alloy [64], the vertical struts fracture,
J. Zhang et al. Composites Part B 201 (2020) 108340

leading to failure of the whole layer, after which the foam is crushed
layer by layer. However, the sample using a stainless steel alloy [78]
shows buckling-induced shear deformation.

4.2.2. Arrowhead auxetics

Fig. 11. Dislocation of a single layer incurred by the failure of vertical struts in
compression (in the X3 direction), and the wall material for printing is
Ti–6Al–4V alloy (the crosshead speed is 1.27 mm/min) [64].
As one of typical auxetic pattern, arrowhead auxetic materials and
structures have been designed and fabricated [70,106,107,171,202] to
examine their mechanical properties: compression and dynamic impact
of double arrowhead honeycombs [14,128,203–205] and
auxetic-knitted composite tubes [167] and indentation of dome-shape
auxetic materials [206]. Relevant work is discussed in this section to
reveal their deformation mechanisms associated with energy
absorption.
Fig. 18(a) illustrates possible deformation patterns of the represen­
tative units of arrowhead honeycombs under different loading condi­
tions. For the unit in quasi-static compression, six plastic hinges form
when the bending moment of the walls reaches the fully plastic bending
movement. Cell walls experience bending, compression and possible
tension. Therefore, the collapse stress correlated with cell geometries
can be obtained from energy conservation, and the corresponding en­
ergy absorption of the arrowhead honeycomb can then be determined.
Similarly, the responses of arrowhead honeycombs under dynamic
loading can be estimated by considering the effect of inertia. Results of

Fig. 12. Compressive stress of inverted tetrapods auxetic structures under quasi-static loading (at a cross-head rate of 0.1 mm/s) [139].

Fig. 13. (a) Magnified views of the inner-most RVE taken from micro-CT X-ray scanning at different levels of strains [112]; (b) Photos of the progressive deformation
of the Bucklicrystal structure with bcc-6 hole in quasi-static uniaxial compression (the base material is thermoplastic polyurethane TPU) [160].

12
J. Zhang et al.
Fig. 14. crushing process of (a) anti-tetrachiral honeycombs (wall material: ABS polymer) [189] and (b) re–entrant-chiral hybrid auxetic honeycombs loaded in the
two directions (wall material: polyamide 12) [191].
the deformation [202–204] demonstrated that (1) under quasi-static
compression (as shown in Fig. 18(b)) and low-velocity impact (10
m/s), the arrowhead sample shows auxetic effect and shrinks near the
crushing end and then cells collapse along the “shrink” shape layer by
layer; (2) the auxetic effect is not expected to be important for
high-velocity impact (100 m/s) and the collapse band initiates at the
crushing end and propagates to the supporting end.
Fig. 18(c) plots the quasi-static and dynamic stress-strain curves of
double arrowhead honeycombs with different cell geometries. Different
from the constant stress plateau of hexagonal honeycombs, the arrow­
head honeycomb under the quasi-static loading (V = 1 m/s) shows
hardening in the plateau stage [128], since the auxetic effect makes the
materials move inward and become dense. This can also be confirmed by
a smaller densification strain for the quasi-static case than that for the
dynamic case. However, the curves at V = 50 m/s present a plateau
regime, which means that the auxetic effect is neglectable in this case.
Also, under quasi-static and low-velocity impact, the crushing stress is
sensitive to cell angles responsible for the auxetic effect, while it is
insensitive to them under high-velocity impact [128,204]. Therefore,
there exists a critical velocity beyond which the dynamic stress is
insensitive to the auxetic effect [128]. As the velocity increases further,
the crushing stress increases [203] and the energy absorption of mate­
rials is approximately proportional to the second power of velocity
[204]. This is in agreement with the conclusions of re-entrant honey­
combs in dynamic tension [207] and compression [208].
To use auxetic materials in protective devices against impact, Yang
et al. [14] and Sanami et al. [70] evaluated the structural protective
performance of arrowhead and chiral-arrowhead honeycombs to
13
Composites Part B 201 (2020) 108340
indentation loading. Results demonstrated that the transmitted stress
through the arrowhead structure is lower than that at the loading end
[14], which is beneficial to protected items. Moreover, the bottom
portion of the auxetic pad under local impact moves up due to auxetic
effect, thus, creating a gap between the support and the pad. Notably,
the pad can be designed to avoid direct transmission of the impact force
to the most vulnerable part by generating a space between the body and
pad surface due to its uneven deformation. The impact force will be
reallocated to surrounding areas less susceptible to injury. So too is the
impact stress, and the crushing energy is dissipated through transverse
deformation. However, more work should be done to offer the best
design of structural topology and material selection. Design methods for
optimum distribution or shunting of the impact force require develop­
ment by considering various shapes, thicknesses and materials. Mean­
while, fracture and shock absorption of auxetic pads at high-velocity
impact needs to be examined to verify their advantage.
To reduce manufacturing damage and stress concentration, the
double arrowhead pattern was tailored to be double-U auxetic struc­
tures, and such curved configurations was proved to have enhanced
auxetic behaviour and higher collapse stress than double arrowhead
honeycombs [202]. Meanwhile, it was found that the star-arrowhead
hybrid honeycomb can absorb much more energy than the star-shape
honeycomb with the same relative densities [205]. Additionally, the
arrowhead dome showed reduced snap-through in comparison with
conventional lattices and solid domes [206], due to the auxetic effect
which allows the creation of structures with synclastic curvatures. The
arrowhead pattern was also introduced into auxetic-knitted composites
[167,209], and it was found that the energy absorption of the auxetic
J. Zhang et al.
Fig. 15. (a) Auxetic effect on the deformation modes of convex-concave foams in quasi-static compression [66]; (b) Deformation of chiral auxetic foams under
different loading conditions [193].
composites is highly influenced by the auxeticity of the knitted tubular
fabric, and the higher the values of negative Poisson’s ratios in the
composite, the greater the specific energy absorption of the composite
[167].
4.2.3. Inverted tetrapods auxetics
As mentioned in Section 4.1.2, high strain-rate impact tests of
inverted tetrapod auxetic samples were performed using a one-stage
powder gun [74]. The samples were positioned and glued to the brass
weight, together as the projectile. The stress-strain curves are shown in
Fig. 19, which include the elastic stage followed by a nearly constant
plateau and the final densification at higher strains. Compared with the
quasi-static curve, the influence of impact loading on the plateau stress
and densification strain can be clearly observed, in agreement with the
observations of chiral foams under high-velocity impact [193]. The
subsequent crushing of structure layers results in oscillatory plateau
stress. The inertia effect associated with the crushing localisation is
responsible for the enhanced dynamic strength at high velocity regimes
[201].
Fig. 20 presents the progressive deformation when the sample im­
pacts a fixed rigid plate at a velocity of 200 m/s. By recalling the quasi-
static case in Section 4.1.2, the loading rate greatly affects the defor­
mation modes, similar to the observations for chiral auxetic materials
[193] and for traditional cellular materials [41,148,197,201]. As the
loading velocity increases, the deformation of re-entrant foams changes
from homogeneous to shock mode. The inertia effect is negligible when
homogeneous, and the collapse initiates at the weakest point of the
14
Composites Part B 201 (2020) 108340
sample—expressed in the form of shear bands. However, the inertia
effect governs the deformation at higher velocity loading, and the
collapse only localises at the proximal end (as also observed in Fig. 15
(b)), regardless of the weakest position in the sample. Local transverse
crushing only occurs at the crushing front while in shock mode, and no
visible auxetic effect can be observed.
4.2.4. Auxetic tubes
Metallic Tubes with a re-entrant pattern were printed (as shown in
Fig. 21(a)) and tested to investigate the effect of auxetic design on their
crash performance by evaluating axial crash force, specific energy ab­
sorption, and deceleration [210]. A low initial velocity of 6.0 m/s is
applied in crash tests. Fig. 21 compares the deformation mode of the
auxetic tube with both of a convention tube and a tube with hexagon
honeycomb pattern. Folding collapse occurs for all tubes. However, due
to the auxetic effect, initial circular cross section of the auxetic tube
becomes oval shape in folding regions, different from the uniform
expansion in the radial direction of conventional and honeycomb tubes.
Consequently, the auxetic tube under low-velocity impact exhibits
higher specific energy absorption. Also, it demonstrates substantially
low and steady deceleration after the first peak during the axial crash,
which enables the auxetic tube to maintain improved energy-dissipation
performance.
The advantage of auxetic effect on the energy absorption of tube
structures was also confirmed by Ref. [167], and larger values of
negative Poisson’s ratios produce better energy absorption capacity, and
vice versa. Further, by evaluating the crashworthiness indicators, crush
J. Zhang et al. Composites Part B 201 (2020) 108340

Fig. 16. Stress–strain curves under quasi-static and dynamic loading: (a) 2D re-entrant stress–strain, (c) 3D re-entrant stress-strain, (e) 2D missing rib stress–strain.
(The samples were compressed at constant strain rate approx. 2000 s− 1) [78].

Fig. 17. Comparison of intact structures, structures collapsed in quasi-static experiment, and structures collapsed in SHPB experiments: (a) 2D re-entrant, (b) 3D re-
entrant, (c) 2D missing rib; (manufactured using 316L–0407 austenitic stainless steel alloy) [78].

response and energy absorption performance of auxetic foam-filled
circular tubes [211] and square tubes [61,143,212] (under drop­
weight impact with input energy up to 1.8 kJ or impact velocity up to 24
m/s) are superior to empty and conventional foam-filled tubes. Also,
increasing the auxeticity level of foams can improve the crashworthiness
performance of foam-filled tubes since higher values of negative Pois­
son’s ratios lead to increased number of collapse lobes of composite
tubes [212]. However, extreme Poisson’s ratios of auxetic foam-filled
conic tubes should be avoided in engineering applications due to the
high peak force of extreme cases [145]. Additionally, bending properties
of auxetic tubes were analysed [124,213,214]. Proper auxetic design
can considerably extending the curvature that the tube can reach before
undergoing kinking [214].

15
J. Zhang et al. Composites Part B 201 (2020) 108340

Fig. 18. (a) Representative units and assumed deformation modes of double arrowhead honeycombs under quasi-static compression and low- and high-velocity
impact [203,204]; (b) crushing process of the double arrowhead honeycomb under quasi-static loading (0.5 mm/min, stainless steel is used in printing) [202];
(c) Stress-strain curves of double arrowhead honeycombs and the effect of cell geometries [128].

4.3. Poisson’s ratio
Poisson’s ratio is an important parameter of a material, and generally
represents the negative ratio of the lateral extension to the longitudinal
extension in the loading direction. Poisson’s ratios calculated from en­
gineering strain reflect the macroscopic and averaged value. Elastic
Poisson’s ratios have been extensively studied, as mentioned in Section
2; however, under large loading strain, the members of metamaterials
suffer nonlinearity such as plastic or large deformation. These non­
linearly force the Poisson’s ratio, especially in large magnitude, show
significant loading strain dependence [122]. To feature the progressive
deformation of auxetic materials, the plastic Poisson’s ratio [215,216]
should be employed. For re-entrant honeycombs under large deforma­
tion in the X2 direction, this ratio can be described in the form of

16
J. Zhang et al.
Fig. 18. (continued).
Fig. 19. Comparison of quasi-static (velocity 0.01 mm/s and strain rate 0.005
s− 1) and high strain rate experimental (velocity 200 m/s and the strain rate
5000 s− 1) results for long specimens of different porosities [74].
incremental strains [126]:
( )
dεt1 1 1 2 fore, this section will outline related experimental studies to show the
υp2 = − = − (1)
dεt2 tan θ tan θ sin θ
The ratio for the loading case in the X1 direction is the reciprocal
value in Eq. (1). When loaded in the X2 direction, the plastic Poisson’s
ratio increases gradually from negative to positive, as shown in Fig. 8(b).
Meanwhile, the ratio for X1-loading is always negative, as in Fig. 8(c).
It is well known that specific designs of micro-structures of materials
produce negative Poisson’s ratios. Besides, Hedayati et al. [217] found
no auxeticity of octagonal honeycombs fabricated using polylactic acid
(PLA), but those from TPU demonstrate a negative Poisson’s ratio [156].
This indicates that the auxeticity is possibly affected by the wall material
for printing: TPU leads to much easier occurrence of squares rotation
and bending of the cell walls during compression, whereas PLA is
comparatively stiffer. This was also confirmed by the compression of
17
Composites Part B 201 (2020) 108340
TPU and PLA arrowhead honeycombs [14]. Meanwhile, the compressive
experiments demonstrated that hierarchical octagonal honeycombs
have a higher negative Poisson’s ratio than uniform octagonal honey­
combs [156]. Further, these values of all filled auxetic structures are
significantly reduced, despite the stiffness of the filling material being
very low [78]. All research indicates that the negative Poisson’s ratio of
these materials/structures are affected by geometrical topologies and
deformation of microstructures associated with different wall materials
for printing.
5. Responses of auxetic sandwich structures
Sandwich structures composed of crushable cores and two mono­
lithic skins are among the most effective approaches for impact pro­
tection. In general, the frontal skin helps to distribute the load over the
crushable core by mainly carrying tensile and compressive loads. Then,
the core dissipates a large amount of imparted energy and attenuates the
transmitted force/stress, therefore, preventing catastrophic failure and
achieving protective performance. The energy-absorption capability of
sandwich panels is affected by (a) geometry (length, width and thick­
ness), (b) mass (relative density), (c) properties of the wall material used
to construct cellular cores and skins and (d) core cell topology. There­
mechanical performances of sandwich structures with auxetic cores to
quasi-static and impact loading.
5.1. Quasi-static loading
5.1.1. Compression of auxetic sandwich panels
Sandwich panels with re-entrant, octet-truss and body centred cubic
(BCC) lattice cores were fabricated by laser sintering using Nylon 12,
and tested in quasi-static compression experiments [152]. The behav­
iour of sandwich structures is expected to be dominated by cellular
cores. The deformation shows that none of the samples exhibits strut
fracture due to high ductility of Nylon 12. Upon unloading, the samples
also experience some elastic recovery. The BCC and octet-truss cores,
J. Zhang et al. Composites Part B 201 (2020) 108340

Fig. 20. Crushing sequence of long specimen with the middle porosity 0.86 at the impact velocity 200 m/s and the strain rate 5000 s− 1. (Strain increment between
each picture is 10%; the samples were printed using Ti–6Al–4V alloy powder) [74].

Fig. 21. (a) Tube structures printed with SUS316L metal powder via selective laser melting technique; crash deformation and profiles of their cross-sections: (b)
conventional tube, (c) tube with re-entrant pattern and (d) tube with hexagon honeycomb pattern. (initial loading velocity is 6.0 m/s for crash tests) [210].

respectively, feature bending-dominated and stretch-dominated defor­
mation. The re-entrant core shows a typical cyclic pattern, in the form of
layer-wise fail deformation [64,78,218] as reflected in Fig. 17. Cell walls
with ductile materials buckle and the core fails, due to buckling-induced
instability or stress concentration. The findings also concluded that the
re-entrant core has the highest energy-absorption performance as well as
volumetric energy-absorption efficiency among all sandwich panels. The
energy-absorption performance can be tailored at a broad range, which
caters for various requirements in engineering.
5.1.2. Bending of re-entrant beams
As a rule, sandwich beams with conventional cellular cores fail due
to local buckling in the core. Failure then propagates in the form of
shear, indentation and inter-laminar failure, accompanied by yield and

Fig. 22. Bending characteristic of sandwich composite specimens with different core (VeroWhite, an acrylic-based photopolymer) structures and U-CFRP face sheets
under quasi-static three-point bending with the loading rate 0.008 mm/s. The effective density of core material is 0.2 for all specimens. (a) Load-deflection curves; (b)
the images of deformed configuration of each sandwich specimen at a deflection of 8 mm [176].

18
J. Zhang et al.
wrinkle of skins [219,220].
Fig. 22 shows the deformation and forces of sandwich beams with
different core topologies [176,221], which demonstrates that the core
geometries significantly affect the responses. Fractures occur in the
truss, octec and conventional honeycomb cores, and lead to their shear
deformation; thus, stress distribution is largely concentrated on the
loading area and certain struts, where local failure is expected.
Conversely, no local fracture up to a large deflection was observed in the
re-entrant sandwich beam, as the buckling of vertical cell walls enables
the beam bending globally. The failure mechanism of re-entrant sand­
wich beams is global dominant, which provides less local deformation
and failure, and the stress distributes relatively homogeneously in both
face-sheets and core material [176,222]. This suggests that larger
bending deflection of the auxetic sandwich is prone to increased energy
absorption. Moreover, increasing the relative density of cores can
significantly increase the maximum load, bending stiffness, displace­
ment at the maximum load and energy absorption of sandwich beams
[221].
To allow for a continuous distribution of curvatures, stiffness and
energy absorption capability within materials and structures, a graded
concept was proposed for re-entrant honeycombs by varying the internal
cell angle [223]. Graded auxetic panels were printed with variations in
horizontal wall length (Topology 1, left figure) and internal cell angle
(Topology 2, right figure), as shown in Fig. 5(a). Their bending and
failure behaviour associated with graded configurations were tested in
three-point bending [154]. Corresponding damage morphologies are
illustrated in Fig. 23. Shear cracks are observed in the core, and distinct
delamination occurs between the core and skins. For Topology 1, the
crack first propagates vertically and then horizontally, while in Topol­
ogy 2, it propagates simultaneously in both directions.
Gradients affect the initiation of core failure within sandwich beams,
as shown in Fig. 24. For Topology 1 with varied wall lengths, an increase
Fig. 23. Damage morphologies of the gradient cellular sandwich panels (printed using ABSplus material) under quasi-static 3-point bending with the loading velocity
0.1 mm/s: (a) sample with Topology 1; and (b) sample with Topology 2 [154].
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Composites Part B 201 (2020) 108340
of the gradient parameter hg leads to concentrated failure in the sup­
porting area (ξ = 1). This is because the crack occurs in areas where the
cells have the largest dimensions and in the oblique ribs. However, when
changing cell angles (Topology 2), the sample behaves differently.
Intuitively, small values of internal cell angles feature remarkable aux­
eticity. Also, re-entrant honeycombs possess higher out-of-plane shear
buckling stress, thus, providing the core more resistance to shear rather
than conventional ones. Consequently, auxetic sandwiches tend to
experience overall deformation with less local failure [176,222,224].
For Topology 2, the regions with convex hexagonal cells are more prone
to fail due to core shear, and a higher portion of failure onset is observed
in the central loading area with local positive Poisson’s ratios. Large
values of the gradient angle Δθ also appear to trigger failure in the
loading area. The two gradient configurations show that it is possible to
tune and control the global and local responses of sandwich structures
based on graded core geometries and selection of the core material.
5.2. Dynamic loading
The drop-weight impact [135,179] and the close-in blast impact
[135] were conducted on auxetic sandwich panels to evaluate their
dynamic properties. Under low-velocity impact [179], the auxetic core
has much lower transmitted force and decreased stress level compared
with the rectangular and hexagonal cores at the same deformation lev­
el—this is crucial for minimising the impact to protected structures.
Also, the impact force on the auxetic sandwich is relatively higher than
that on the equivalent conventional sandwich [135]. This demonstrates
that under low-velocity impact, architected sandwich panels with
auxetic cores exhibit a desirable combination of high energy-absorption
capability with low force transmission, which could be of interest in
shock-absorber applications. This advantage is attributed to the material
concentration at the impact zone due to the auxetic effect—the auxetic
J. Zhang et al. Composites Part B 201 (2020) 108340

Fig. 24. Initial crack positions for each gradient configuration:(a) definition of non-dimensional parameter; (b) Topology 1; (c) Topology 2. (NPR stands for negative
Poisson’s ratio, ZPR for Zero Poisson’s ratio, PPR for positive Poisson’s ratio.) [154].

core material flows laterally towards the loading area (as shown in
Fig. 25) and provides better support to the impactor. Additionally,
different from the bending-dominated deformation of conventional
honeycombs, auxetic cores show stretching-dominated deformation.
This makes cellular materials comparatively more weight efficient for
structural applications [225].
Under close-in field blast loading [135], the results demonstrate, in
terms of the protective performance, the effectiveness of sandwich
structures with auxetic cores. Both conventional and auxetic honeycomb
sandwich panels could boost energy absorption of the monolithic steel
plate by changing its deformation pattern under close-in blast loading.
Meanwhile, the energy absorption and SEA of auxetic sandwiches are
higher than those of conventional sandwiches. The study indicates the
great lightweight potential of composite structures comprising various
materials and configurations for close-in blast protection of civil and
vehicular objects. Similar findings were also reported in Imbalzano et al.
[57] for honeycomb panels subjected to far-field blast loading.
From Fig. 26, the impact energy applied to sandwich panels is pri­
marily absorbed through the plastic deformation and damage of core
and face-sheets [179]. Also, AM defects in some cell walls were
observed. These imperfections lead to delamination within the cell walls
and, thus, weaken the mechanical properties and energy-absorption
capability. However, opposed to conventional sandwich structures
bonded together using adhesion, 3D printing maintains the integrity of
sandwich panels and makes them less sensitive to the failure of inter­
action between the face-sheets and cellular core [170].

Fig. 25. Final deformation of the sandwich panels after drop-weight impact (top for experiment and bottom for simulation) [135].

20
J. Zhang et al. Composites Part B 201 (2020) 108340

Fig. 26. (a) 3D printed polylactic acid (PLA) biopolymer sandwich panels fabricated by FDM technology and the drop weight test configuration; (b) The impacted
part of the sandwich panel with vertical hexagonal core under 30J impact energy. (c) and (d) Micro-CT tomography images of the centre part of the sandwich panel
with vertical hexagonal cores (before and after impact) and the relative density of ρ = 0.3 subjected to 30J impact energy (maximum resolution is 12 μm) [179].

Drop-weight tests were conducted on auxetic sandwich panels
printed using Nylon 12 to investigate their low-velocity impact perfor­
mance [152]. Under multiple impacts, compared to octet-truss and BCC
lattice, the auxetic cellular designs exhibit optimal total
energy-absorption and per-strike energy-absorption abilities, as well as
low peak response force [152,177]. For the re-entrant auxetic structures,
buckling of the vertical struts might act as the most significant
contributor to enhancing structure’s energy-absorption abilities. A
higher negative Poisson’s ratio value contributes significantly to an in­
crease of average energy absorption and reduction of peak force [177].
Fig. 27 presents the damage characteristics of auxetic sandwich
structures under dynamic loading [152]. Aux1 and Aux2 designs with
different relative densities (H/L ratios) exhibit similar characteristics
with top and bottom perforation. Their top face sheets and cores both
present clear shear fracture in the loading areas, due to the inertia effect,
and the bottom skins exhibit clear delamination. The top perforation is

Fig. 27. Damage characteristics of auxetic sandwich structures built horizontally (For the vertically built samples, the damage characteristics are similar to the
horizontal ones.) [152].

21
J. Zhang et al.
localised while the bottom perforation occurs over a larger area; this is
because the re-entrant core redistributes stress more evenly throughout
the structures [222]. For the Aux3 sandwich with more significant
negative Poisson’s ratio effect (i.e., a smaller internal cell angle), the top
skin shows significant skin wrinkling and delamination, and the bottom
perforation damage appears more significant compared with Aux2. This
attributes to more significant auxeticity, which introduces greater shear
stress on the bottom face through face-core bonding constraints. The
overall damage characteristic is similar to other AM cellular structures
[226,227]. These sandwich panels appear to exhibit stronger core-skin
bonding since the entire structures are fabricated in one process using
the same material. This differs from traditional sandwich structures with
core-skin bonding, otherwise prone to exhibit more interfacial bonding
strength issues.
6. Discussion
Tables 1–4 list and summarise recent experimental results of printed
auxetic materials and sandwich structures, including the examples
mentioned in Sections 4 and 5. Their geometrical patterns, wall mate­
rials, loading conditions and deformation mechanisms are given for the
convenience of discussion.
6.1. Quasi-static deformation of auxetic materials
For a repetitive re-entrant cell in tension in the longitudinal direc­
tion, lateral expansion occurs; after a critical point when the initially
inclined walls become horizontal, the re-entrant cell becomes a con­
ventional hexagon honeycomb cell [67]. The plastic Poisson’s ratio is
used to characterise the behaviour of re-entrant honeycombs, and the
ideal ratio with perfectly plastic material increases gradually from
negative to positive [126]. However, the plastic Poisson’s ratio when
considering strain hardening has not yet been formulated.
For auxetic materials in compression, when the stress reaches the
yield strength of wall materials, auxetic cells start to yield and deform
plastically. Cells collapse in the behaviour of elastic buckling, plastic
yielding, creep or brittle fracture [155]. For different ratios of the ver­
tical strut length (H) to the inclined strut length (L), two failure modes
were observed for auxetic cells [64]: yielding of inclined struts and
yielding of vertical struts. The cell failure attributes to local buckling and
sudden brittle fracture of the vertical struts [139]. The overall defor­
mation of auxetic materials are consequently affected by the failure
modes of auxetic cells. Brittle fracture of vertical struts leads to
layer-wise dislocation as shown in Fig. 11, so the auxetic foam was
crushed layer by layer when loaded in the X3 direction [64,65,139]. This
deformation mode is much different from the X-shape or V-shape
deformation observed for conventional cellular materials [41,148,236].
However, when the sample is loaded in the X2 direction, a
shear-dominated deformation mode is observed [187,188]. For short
samples, the shear plane spreads almost from the bottom to the top,
while in long samples it locates roughly in the middle [139]. Further,
porosities of the sample were shown to affect the deformation mecha­
nisms [65]. These studies demonstrated that the microstructure of cells
and the relative density affect the deformation modes of auxetic
materials.
Besides the direct influence of cell geometries on auxetic effect, the
wall materials used for constructing auxetic materials can also play the
role in materials’ auxetic effect. This lies in the fact that mechanical
properties of the wall material such as stiffness and ductility can affect
the deformation of the cell unit of auxetic materials, and thereby their
global auxetic effect. Therefore, one can tune the cell deformation and
then the global response of auxetic blocks. For example, auxeticity of
PLA octagonal honeycombs was observed but not for TPU honeycombs
with the same pattern [217], also confirmed by Ref. [14], which is
because relatively soft TPU leads to easier occurrence of squares’ rota­
tion and walls’ bending of the substructures of octagonal honeycombs
22
Composites Part B 201 (2020) 108340
[156]. Meanwhile, buckling of ductile struts [78] and fracture of brittle
walls [64,65,139] led to shear-dominated deformation and layer-wise
collapse of auxetic materials, respectively. This indicates that ductility
of wall materials can affect the failure modes of cells and consequently
invokes different overall deformation of auxetic structures. Further­
more, as demonstrated in Refs. [102,229,237], combining multiple
materials for specific components of structural materials can take
advantage of their material properties to avoid or facilitate a deforma­
tion mode or failure mode. This hybrid-material construction method
opens another door for controlling the auxeticity, failure modes and
other mechanical responses. It is expected that these new ideas can
widen the research and thinking about auxetic materials as energy ab­
sorbers or protective devices.
6.2. Dynamic deformation of auxetic materials
As mentioned in Section 6.1, under quasi-static loading, the defor­
mation modes of auxetic materials depend on the microstructure of cells,
ductility of the wall material and the relative density. For example,
buckling of ductile struts [78] and fracture of brittle walls [64,65,139]
respectively result in shear-dominated deformation and layer-wise
collapse of auxetic materials. However, the deformation behaviour of
auxetic materials under dynamic loading is different. The experimental
results showed that the sample exhibits homogeneous deformation
almost without lateral distortion [78]. As the loading velocity increases,
the collapse deformation locates only at the proximal end where the
sample impacts a fixed rigid plate, and the shock deformation mode was
observed [74]. The difference lies in the inertia effect which overwhelms
how the wall material’s physical properties influence the whole crushing
process, to be discussed below.
The dynamic deformation behaviour of auxetic materials is similar to
that observed in conventional cellular materials that have been
comprehensively investigated and understood [41,148,196–198]
—thus, shedding light on the dynamic issues of auxetic materials. For
conventional honeycombs/foams, some crushing constitutive models
have been proposed—for examples, rigid-perfectly plastic-locking
[238], rigid-linear hardening plastic-locking [198] and rigid-power law
hardening [239] models. By considering the elastic stage,
elastic-perfectly plastic-rigid [240] and elastic-plastic-rigid [241]
models were developed. Afterwards, since analytical predictions are
sensitive to the locking strain [242,243], shock models including diverse
strain hardening [242,244] have been proposed to improve precision.
Additionally, some analytical models have been established for graded
cellular materials [245–250]. These constitutive models illuminate a
general framework for solving plastic shock wave issues and predicting
shock-induced stress enhancement in auxetic materials. Determination
of critical loading velocities [199,239,251,252] for the transformation
of deformation modes can also be employed to elucidate the deforma­
tion transformation of auxetic materials.
To investigate the inertia effect on the deformation behaviour of
auxetic materials, re-entrant honeycombs were employed and the
wavelike deformation mode in dynamic tension was explored [207].
Fig. 28(a) gives the deformation process of the re-entrant honeycomb
under dynamic tension. Different from the uniform lateral expansion of
the re-entrant honeycomb as shown in Fig. 8(a), it can be observed that
under dynamic loading, the re-entrant honeycomb deforms layer by
layer, just like a tensile wave propagating through the sample from the
loading end to the fixed end. The transmitting zone is almost constant
during the propagation of the deformation front. Cells ahead of the zone
(below front 1) exhibit no clear expansion until the wave arrives, and
contraction of those behind the zone (above front 2) is almost the same.
Based on the impulse-momentum theorem, the dynamic force at the
loading end is predicted as
 Table 1

J. Zhang et al.
Summary of experimental results of printed auxetic materials under quasi-static loading.
Geometrical patterns of materials Wall material in printing Loading conditions Deformation characteristics and mechanisms

Re-entrant Re-entrant 17-4 PH stainless steel, Plastic/ Tensile loading (5 When the bending moment of cell walls reaches the fully
based honeycombs [67] photopolymer (as shown in Fig. 8(a)) mm/min) plastic bending moment, plastic hinges form and
auxetics cell walls rotate along the hinges, resulting in the auxetic effect.
Tailored re-entrant acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) Quasi-static As shown in Fig. 10(b), cell walls experience elastic bending and
honeycombs [155] polymer compression (2 mm/ cell collapse due to elastic buckling, plastic yielding, creep or
(as shown in Fig. 5(b)) min) brittle fracture. The samples present layer-by-layer collapse,
which leads to wavelike fluctuations of the stress in the plateau stage.
AuxHex hybrid Nylon PA2200 powder Quasi-static
honeycombs [228] compression (1 mm/
min)

(1) x-loading (left figure): no shear bands appear becaise the NPR effect of auxetic cells releases

the transverse deformation of the hexagonal cells.

(2) y-loading(right figure): the vertical walls exhibit buckling, which leads to local shear deformation of layers, and the
sample shows a layer-by-layer damage process.
Dual-material re- FlexPro filaments and polyurethane-based Indentation (1.0
entrant honeycombs SMP filaments mm/min)
[229]
(1) The beam-like members are deformed and
23

experienced local bending and buckling.

(2) The meta-structure shows an initial hardening due to the
auxetic effect, and then seems to lose stability and
experiences a softening snap-through type of buckling.

Re-entrant foams Ti–6Al–4V Quasi-static Two failure modes were observed–yield of critical
[64] compression (1.27 walls and yield of vertical walls–which depends on
mm/min) the ratio of vertical strut length to the inclined strut length.

Auxetic lattice reinforced composites VeroWhite for lattice, TangoPlus for matrix Quasi-static
[230] compression (1.0 ×
10− 3 s− 1)

Composites Part B 201 (2020) 108340

Inverted tetrapods auxetic foams [65,
139,186]
Ti–6Al–4V alloy (as shown in Fig. 6(c))
Combining the lattice phase with the matrix phase enables the deformation mechanism from the local deformation to the
global mechanism: change the local instability to a global instability (auxetic lattices) or local buckling to a global non-
catastrophic dissipative event (non-auxetic lattices).
Impact loading (0.1 The deformation mechanisms are related to loading directions: X2 direction – collapse with shear bands, and X3 direction –
mm/s) layer-by-layer collapse due to local buckling and brittle failure of vertical struts.
(continued on next page)
 Table 1 (continued )

J. Zhang et al.
Geometrical patterns of materials Wall material in printing Loading conditions Deformation characteristics and mechanisms

Bucklicrystals auxetic foams [112,160, Thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) Cyclic loading (1.5 × (1) Buckling of cells and rotation of connecting nodes actuate collapse of the sample and induces the auxetic behaviour, as
231] (as shown in Fig. 6(d)) 10− 3 s− 1) shown in Fig. 13.
(2) The strength is sensitive to the porosity, and the energy absorption capacity decreases with the increase of porosity.
Chiral based Chiral honeycombs VeroWhite for walls and DM9760/TangoPlus Quasi-static tension
auxetics [102] for cell corners (as shown in Fig. 5(e))

(1) By varying cell size ratio and stiffness ratio of component

materials (multi-material design strategy), two deformation mechanisms are achieved: mechanism I, a sequential cell-
opening mechanism with core cells opening faster than base cells; mechanism II, a sequential mechanism with base cells
opening faster than core cells.
(2) Such mechanisms together with auxetic effect can be used for designing materials with colour change capability to
respond to external loads or stimuli.
Convex-concave VeroWhite Plus Quasi-static (1) The foam with straight walls is crushed brittlely, without collapse plateau; the foam with curved walls has a long collapse
foams [66] compression (1 mm/ plateau.
min) (2) The auxetic effect plays a great role on the deformation modes, as shown in Fig. 15(a).

Stacked origami materials [232] Stainless steel 316L Quasi-static The negative Poisson’s ratio effect makes origami structures have a lower densification strain than other conventional
compression (1.0 × cellular materials.
10− 3 s− 1)
24

Auxetic perforated structures [233] Nylon polymer and carbon fibre reinforced Quasi-static
nylon polymer compression (2.0
mm/min)

The designed auxetic structures present structural rotation to a state in which the perforation gaps are filled at a critical
strain, and beyond that, the specimens are compressed and expand insignificantly, with each unit cell bending medially.

Composites Part B 201 (2020) 108340

 J. Zhang et al.
Table 2
Summary of experimental results of printed auxetic materials under dynamic loading.
Geometrical patterns of materials Wall material in printing Loading conditions Deformation characteristics and mechanisms

Re-entrant Re-entrant AlSi12 alloy Tensile loading (up to 16

based honeycombs [207] m/s)
auxetics

Different from the uniform deformation in quasi-static tension, localised deformation and wavelike propagation due to inertia
effect under dynamic tension.
Re-entrant chiral polyamide12 (PA12) Impact loading (5 m/s)
hybrid honeycombs
[191]

(1) Fracture of inclined walls due to brittle PA12 initiates the failure of

hybrid and re-entrant honeycombs.

25

(2) A layer-by-layer progressive fracture was observed but there is no obvious dynamic effect.
Re-entrant 316L–0407 austenitic stainless Impact loading (2.8 × Strain rate sensitive behavior of sintered auxetic structure is identified: the sample in SHPB impact presents homogeneous
honeycombs/foams steel alloy 103 s− 1) deformation, without the lateral distortion and shear deformation in quasi-static compression.
[78]
Inverted tetrapods auxetic foams [74] Ti–6Al–4V alloy (as shown in Impact loading (200 m/ The shock deformation mode is observed, due to inertia effect, as shown in Fig. 20.
Fig. 6(c)) s)
Chiral-based Chiral Thermoplastic polyurethane Low-velocity impact
auxetics honeycombs (TPU) filament (drop-weight testing up
[192] to 5 J)

Peak force and maximum axial strain increased with impact energy. The impact duration for chiral structures with flat-end
indenter increased with impact energy but decreased with increasing impact energy for the other lattices.
Chiral foams Copper powder Impact loading (284 As shown in Fig. 15(b), (1) no strain rate effect appears at low-velocity impact while the deformation behaviour changes to shock
[193] mm/s~ 250 m/s) mode (the structure deforms at the impact front) at high-velocity impact; (2) after initial buckling, the failure of the chiral
structures starts in the nodes by forming plastic hinges.

Composites Part B 201 (2020) 108340

Arrowhead hybrid auxetic material [14] polylactic acid (PLA) and Local impact force (force Under local impact, the bottom portion of the pad moves up due to auxetic effect, and this unevenly deformation creates a gap
thermoplastic polyurethane pulse) between the support and the pad, which avoids direct transmission of the impact force to the most vulnerable part.
(TPU)
(as shown in Fig. 5(d))
 J. Zhang et al.
Table 3
Summary of experimental results of printed auxetic sandwich structures to quasi-static loading.
Sandwich Patterns of cores Wall material in printing Loading conditions Deformation characteristics and mechanisms
structures

Auxetic sandwich Re-entrant VeroWhite for cores and CFRP for Three-point bending No local fracture was observed in the re-entrant sandwich beam up to a large deflection, because the buckling of vertical cell
beams honeycomb cores face sheets (0.008 mm/s) walls enables the beam bending globally, as shown in Fig. 22(b).
[176]

Re-entrant polylactic acid (PLA) polymer Three-point bending (1) Auxetic sandwich shows global failure mode; buckling of cell
honeycomb cores (0.5 mm/min) walls enables the sandwich to absorb energy under larger deformation,
[221] without catastrophic failure.
(2) Local failure is a more dominate failure mode for sandwich with
higher relative densities than the global failure for lower densities.
Re-entrant foam Ti–6Al–4V alloy Three-point bending Auxetic sandwich panels exhibited homogeneous distribution of stress
cores [222] (1.27 mm/min) and deformation. Failure by fracture of the vertical struts locates
roughly at the middle section between the loading and support rollers.
26

Graded re-entrant ABSplus for cores and carbon/epoxy Three-point bending (1) Shear cracks are observed in the core, and distinct delamination occurs between the core and skins.
honeycomb cores prepreg for skins (0.1 mm/s) (2) Gradients associated with different auxetic effect affect the initiation of the core failure within sandwich beams, as shown
[154] in Fig. 18.
Auxetic sandwich Re-entrant foams Nylon 12 (ALM PA650) Quasi-static Under quasi-static loading, none of the samples exhibits strut fracture due to high ductility of Nylon 12; the re-entrant core
panels [152] compression (strain rate fails in the form of layer-wise deformation due to the buckling induced instability or stress concentration.
of 0.2/min),
Auxetic Chiral honeycomb PA 2200 for chiral structure and CF- Quasi-static indentation
structures with filled with foams 45 M foam (1 mm/s)
filled foam [234]

<

The combination of the foam and the auxetic frame significantly improves the specific absorbed energy and load uniformity
ratio due to their interaction effect.

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 J. Zhang et al.
Table 4
Summary of experimental results of printed auxetic sandwich structures under dynamic loading.
Sandwich Patterns of cores Wall material in printing Loading conditions Deformation characteristics and mechanisms
structures

Auxetic Re-entrant polylactic acid (PLA) Low-velocity impact (drop-weight no fracture is observed in the auxetic sandwich beams up to the final failure. The buckling of constructive struts is seen in
sandwich honeycomb cores polymer testing up to 40 J) auxetic sandwich cores.
beams [221]

Auxetic Re-entrant foams Nylon 12 (ALM PA650) low-energy impact (drop-weight Under low-energy impact, as shown in Fig. 21, the top perforation is localized, while the bottom perforation occurs over
sandwich [152] testing up to 20 J) larger areas due to stress redistribution; the core and skins exhibit shear fracture in the impact area.
panels Re-entrant foam cores ALM PA650 powder low-energy impact (drop-weight The comparison between the auxetic sandwiches suggested
[177] testing up to 1.3 J) that the greater negative Poisson’s ratio value contributes
significantly to increasing the average energy absorption and
reducing the magnitude of peak force.
27

Re-entrant PLA polymers (as shown in low-velocity impact (drop-weight The damage zone of the sandwich after impact is wider for the
honeycomb cores Fig. 26(a)) testing up to 30 J) core with out-of-plane configuration compared to that with in-plane
[179] configuration. Auxetic cores show the stretching-dominated
deformation; the impact energy is primarily absorbed through
the plastic deformation and damage of core and face-sheets.
Re-entrant polylactic acid (PLA) three-point bending (cyclic loading
honeycomb cores with sinusoidal waveform at 5 Hz) (1) At the beginning of the fatigue test, there is a cracking of the
[235]
bottom skin. Due to the cyclic loading, the crack propagates to the core.
Finally, increasing the number of fatigue cycles leads to the total
fail of the specimens.
(2) The sandwiches with low core density present the maximum fatigue
life because a decrease in the core density improves the flexibility of
the material and thus decreases its brittle breakage.

Composites Part B 201 (2020) 108340

J. Zhang et al. Composites Part B 201 (2020) 108340

Fig. 28. (a) Propagation of the deformation front in dynamic tension (a = 0.04 mm, θ0 = 60◦ , V = 16 m/s); (b) Comparison of the average force from numerical
simulations and analytical predictions (a = 0.04 mm, θ0 = 60◦ ).

a2 b 2 + h0/
l0 6.3. Stress and energy absorption of auxetic materials
F2 = n σ ys + n abρs V 2 (2)
l0 sin θ0 h0/l − cos θ0
0 Similar to conventional cellular materials [41,147,148], a typical
stress-strain curve of the auxetic material in tension [67,126] or in
σ ys and ρs are the yield stress and density of the wall material, respec­
compression [65,74,139,155] broadly includes an elastic stage, a long
tively; n is the number of cells within a layer; a and b are the in-plane and
‘pseudo-plateau’ stage and a final stage with the stress rising rapidly.
out-of-plane thicknesses of the wall; and h0 and l0 are the length of the
Besides, the load-displacement curve may fluctuate owing to
vertical wall and inclined wall, respectively, with θ0 denoting the angle
snap-through instability during the collapse of auxetic materials [176,
between them. In the right of this equation, the first term is the quasi-
254–257]. Comparing the results in the quasi-static and dynamic
static force related to cell geometries of honeycombs and properties of
loading demonstrates the loading rate effect on the initial peak stress,
the wall material used to construct honeycomb structures; the second
plateau stress and densification strain [74,78]. The inertia effect asso­
term characterises the inertia effect associated with loading velocities,
ciated with the deformation localisation mentioned above should be
the value of which increases rapidly in a rate of the square of velocity.
responsible for the enhancement of their dynamic properties.
The analytical estimation is compared with the average FE force at the
Further, auxetic materials possess higher compressive strength and
loading end in Fig. 28(b). Comparisons demonstrate that the analytical
absorb more energy than conventional cellular materials [28,57,59,64,
equation can properly predict the dynamic force of re-entrant honey­
68,143,155]. Meanwhile, the loading direction [139] and filling mate­
combs. It should be noted that analytical predictions do not apply to the
rials [78] seem to affect energy absorption. The SEA of the auxetic
case in which the loading velocity is lower than the second critical ve­
sample with filling materials is higher than that without filling in the
locity. The unexpected agreement before this point may be due to a
dynamic compression, but this superiority depends on the filling mate­
weak inertia effect, and the force at the loading end seems close to that at
rials [78].
the fixed end. Additionally, the dynamic crushing behaviour of re-
When using auxetic materials as protective devices (such as body
entrant honeycombs [208], star-re-entrant honeycombs [127],
protection pads), the transmitted stress is of principal concern. Here, the
star-triangular honeycombs [253] and double-arrowed honeycombs
pads are expected to attenuate the impact energy and transmit the least
[203] under different impact velocities were investigated using shock
amount of stress possible. Past research [14] indicates that, within the
wave theory. These studies demonstrate the predominant role of inertia
duration of pulse loading, the stress on the impact end of each structure
in the dynamic behaviour of auxetic materials as loading velocities
is higher than that on the support end. After releasing the load, the stress
increase.
at both ends of the honeycomb virtually equalises, while the transmitted
stress through the arrowhead structure is still lower than that on the

28
J. Zhang et al.
impact end. This is because the auxetic pad in the loading area moves up
and creates a gap between the support and the pad. The auxetic pad then
dissipates the shock energy through transverse deformation. This
finding suggests that protective devices can be designed to avoid direct
transmission of impact to the most vulnerable parts of the body by
redistributing the force to surrounding parts less susceptible to injury.
Therefore, using auxetic materials to induce the deformation path allows
us to tailor the failure modes, stress distribution, load carrying and
particularly the energy absorption of the whole structure.
6.4. Responses of auxetic sandwich structures
Deformation mechanisms of sandwich structures are strongly
affected by their cores. For structures with conventional honeycomb/
foam cores, failure initiates due to local buckling of cell walls, and then
propagates in the form of core shear, indentation, inter-laminar failure,
and face-sheet yield and wrinkle [176,219,220,258,259]. Core shear
causes the failure of sandwich structures. Instead, the auxetic sandwich
presents different deformation. No fracture was observed in re-entrant
sandwich beams up to a large deflection [176]. Meanwhile, buckling
of vertical struts enables the beam to bend as a whole, with no cata­
strophic local failure incurred. Even though less ductile material is used
for auxetic cores [64,78,218], buckling-induced fracture or instability
allows core failure layer by layer, redistribution stress through the
re-entrant core [176] and global bending of the auxetic sandwich beam
[152]. Such global dominant deformation is more beneficial and pref­
erable in applications than the shear-induced local failure in conven­
tional cores. Additionally, the deformation and the failure of auxetic
cores are affected by loading directions, gradient core topology [154]
and boundary conditions [260,261].
Experimental results demonstrate that the energy-absorption capa­
bility of sandwich panels mainly depends on the material properties and
geometrical features of face sheets and cellular cores. As a rule, metallic
sandwich structures generally exhibit increased strength than other
material-based sandwich; therefore, they are expected to absorb more
energy but also transmit greater force [177]. Meanwhile, their
energy-absorption capability and maximum normal stress rise signifi­
cantly when increasing the relative density [152,179]. This means that
suitable materials, whether strong or soft, should be selected depending
on their desired application purposes. In terms of geometrical design,
architected auxetic cores can be utilised to tailor the bending properties
as well as failure mechanisms [176]. A greater negative Poisson’s ratio
significantly increases the energy absorption and reduces the peak force
[177]. Meanwhile, a tailored auxetic sandwich under low-velocity
impact exhibits superior energy-absorption capacity and per-strike
energy-absorption abilities, as well as low transmitted force [152,177,
179]. Therefore, optimal cellular core could be adopted upon selection
of structural designs, and desired energy-absorption performance can be
achieved by further combining specific materials and process systems
[177].
However, one problem should be noted: distinct delamination occurs
between the core and the skins of auxetic sandwich panels [154]. This is
a common drawback of sandwich panels conventionally made by
bonding face-sheets to a core through adhesion. That said, printed
sandwich panels were proven to be less sensitive to failing interaction
between the face-sheets and the cellular core [170]. As such, 3D printing
can overcome this defect by retaining the integrity of the whole
structure.
7. Limitations and future work
7.1. Additive manufacturing
AM has undergone significant developments in recent years and can
produce complex parts without the design constraints of traditional
manufacturing technologies. However, several key limitations of this
29
Composites Part B 201 (2020) 108340
process should be stressed and need to be overcome.
Traditional manufacturing including machining and casting can
produce parts with better accuracy and higher-quality surface finish,
while, above all, achieving better mechanical properties [78]. However,
most of the printed materials have low mechanical strength. Therefore,
additional post-treatment steps such as heat treatment and infiltration
are required to improve microstructural homogeneity. That said, this
may reduce the structure’s load-bearing capability [159] and increase
the cost and processing time [87].
Compromise in the mechanical property chiefly drives from imper­
fections such as embedded voids or particles produced by the AM pro­
cess. For example, pre-bending of beams due to fabrication defects as
well as a high degree of misalignment can affect the critical load that is
required to initiate buckling [35,262]. Also, particles may not be fully
bonded with the rest of a printed structure [184]. As demonstrated in
Refs. [64,87,263,264], microscopic consolidation of cell walls greatly
correlates to the scanning speed, laser power and boundary effect of
struts. Therefore, understanding how to eliminate the formation of pores
in printing and further ensure integrity requires more research. More­
over, the repeatability and consistency of printed materials cannot be
guaranteed, thus, demanding increased work into approaches that
ensure their homogeneity. Additionally, optimising program and feed­
back systems should be performed to improve printing resolution and
manufacturing efficiency [87].
Currently, most commercially available metal-additive machines are
limited to the production of relatively small components. For struts with
small diameters, surface roughness plays a significant role in deter­
mining their mechanical properties [64]. Therefore, the relative
contribution of surface roughness in this context should be assessed. In
addition, future research should explore the influence of a strut’s
cross-sectional shape on the mechanical properties of structures with
more complex intersection nodes.
As limited resources are available for AM, the diversity of printable
materials must increase. For example, in 3D printing, only thermoplastic
polymer with low glass-transition temperature and suitable melting
viscosity, powder-formed materials and a few photopolymers are
useable [87]. Even then, these select few still cannot meet various re­
quirements of industry application. Meanwhile, systematic selection and
evaluation processing of materials are beneficial for the process devel­
opment and optimisation of this manufacturing technique [160]. When
a wall material chosen for fabrication appears to be intrinsically brittle,
it is possible—by precisely tuning parameters such as length-to-diameter
ratio, wall thickness-to-radius ratio and relative density—to avoid brittle
failure of materials [185]. Also, dual-material [102,229,237,265] and
more hybrid-material-based printing processes are potential technolo­
gies driving the development and application of auxetic materials. For
example, combining component materials with different stiffness in
manufacturing allows re-entrant cells to deform without the wall
buckling issue that is inevitable in single-material designs [237].
Dual-material auxetic designs are otherwise capable of generating a
range of non-linear stiffness and dissipating energy, as per the require­
ment of energy-absorbing applications [229,266]. This new
hybrid-material printing adds more dimension and makes possible
tuning of auxeticity and mechanical properties, without changing the
overall geometry of auxetic cells.
Some structures with very complicated geometries or with special
deformation behaviour cannot be fabricated directly through the AM
process. For example, reported data about rotating rigid structures are
based on parametric studies using analytical or FE modelling [88,99],
while little effort has been made in terms of physical fabrication of these
proposed patterns. Due to some simplified hypotheses, FE models are
not guaranteed to present accurate estimations of the mechanical
properties of auxetic materials. Meanwhile, some of the AM techniques
currently used to fabricate complex auxetic geometries have been
known to introduce anisotropy. Therefore, it is necessary to perform
experiments that reveal their exact responses in large deformation, and
J. Zhang et al.
further consider the effect of printing parameters on their resulting
mechanical properties.
Compared with traditional methods such as thermo-mechanical
processing, the main advantage of additive manufacturing is that it al­
lows nearly unlimited topological complexity without the design con­
straints of traditional manufacturing [78,174,175]. However, its
superiority is still unclear and questionable, in terms of mechanical
properties of printed auxetic samples over those from traditional
methods, and little work published has evaluated that. This attributes to
(1) the aforementioned limitations of additive manufacturing and (2)
the lack of quantitative criteria for baseline assessment. Also, based on
current investigations into auxetic materials and structures, the mate­
rials used for constructing auxetic samples are different for additive and
traditional manufacturing. Therefore, more studies are encouraged to
examine the effects of different fabrication techniques on large defor­
mation and energy absorption of auxetic materials and structures;
meanwhile, dimensionless analysis is recommended to form a bench­
mark for evaluating the difference of AM and other traditional tech­
niques. In general, we can use the parameters such as plateau stress and
SEA to assess the energy absorption performance of cellular materials.
Notably, theses quantitative parameters are significantly affected by cell
geometries, loading rates and properties of wall materials and wall
thickness. Therefore, if one attempts to compare the effects of different
fabrication techniques on the responses of auxetic materials and struc­
tures, all these variables should be taken into consideration in study.
7.2. Auxetic materials and structures
As most studies concentrate on the small-strain deformation of
various designed auxetic materials and structures, research on the post-
yielding behaviour remains scarce. Potential applications often require
materials that exhibit the auxetic effect over a full range of strains [88],
making the development of structures proven effective beyond small
deformation a key challenge now facing auxetics design. Meanwhile,
even though some large, plastic deformation models [56,126] have been
proposed, more analytical modelling work should be emphasised for
auxetic materials to predict their material constitutive relationships and
wave propagation by considering different loading rates and various
strain hardening. Also, the failure and fracture criteria of auxetic ma­
terials should be systematically studied and fully understood for their
engineering applications.
Responses of auxetic materials have been comprehensively explored
and well characterised for quasi-static loading conditions, but rather
dynamic loading cases due to insufficient characterisation attempts so
far. However, dynamic effects including the micro-inertial effect,
shockwave effect and strain-rate effect have significant influences on the
mechanical behaviour of printed auxetic materials. Particularly, little
experimental information can be referred to for responses under high-
velocity impact and blast loads. This narrows their engineering appli­
cations as novel composite structures. More experimental data are
needed to reveal their dynamic properties, such as energy absorption
and impact/ballistic resistance. Additionally, for auxetic materials in
dynamic tension or impact, determination of Poisson’s ratio becomes
difficult since their deformation is not homogenous but concentrates at
the loading end due to inertia effect. Therefore, a local Poisson’s ratio
seems more suitable to describe the dynamic, localised deformation in
the three orthogonal directions.
A metamaterial concept accompanied by the development of AM
technology might enable further mechanical metamaterials in future
studies [36]. The combination of auxeticity and AM can stimulate a new
class of auxetic materials or structures. For example, sandwich struc­
tures printed as a whole can retain the integrity of an entire structure
and avoid multilayer delamination [170,179]. It was also reported that
auxetic-reinforced composites through dual-material printing signifi­
cantly enhance stiffness and energy absorption [230,267], since the
auxetic effect makes the matrix in a state of biaxial compression—hence,
30
Composites Part B 201 (2020) 108340
providing additional support. Meanwhile, a gradient concept can be
introduced into printed auxetic materials [128,131,268–270]. A graded
cellular structure would provide varying distribution of stiffness and
deformation, making it possible to vary the curvature distribution,
obtain a core to be used in complex sandwich constructions, and further
provide a material suitable for adaptive mass and stiffness applications
[268]. Tailoring the functionally graded auxetic structure was also
proven to facilitate the desired reaction force function at the support end
[139], buckling capacity [271] and effective stiffness [272]. Further
implementation of multi-disciplinary research, such as the combination
of AM techniques and auxetic effect with other functions (e.g., shape
memory effect and electromagnetic effect), to create multifunctional
auxetic materials could enhance their potential for innovative applica­
tions in the engineering and biomedical fields [81]. Notably, this com­
bination gives access to some special metamaterials such as ultralight
structures [273,274], mechano-optical structures [36],
magneto-mechanical structures [275] and pentamode materials [276].
It is increasingly clear that the broader researchers interpret the meta­
material concept, the larger the number of opportunities in materials
science and engineering.
Besides the effect on engineering, research on auxetic materials also
attracts more attention to careful reviews of classical mechanics [89].
Novel concepts can still be generated based on the well-known princi­
ples of classic elasticity—for example, a negative Poisson’s ratio, nega­
tive stiffness and a negative bulk modulus. Also, auxetic materials under
external loading generally deform with very large strains and change
significantly in volume, which may contradict some assumptions of
classical continuum mechanics. This may require new theories to
explain mechanical behaviour beyond current homogenisation con­
cepts. For example, classical bending theories do not sufficiently char­
acterise the mechanical behaviour arising from the constitutive coupling
among normal and shear strains [277]; hence, an enhanced constitutive
formulation is required for coupled mechanics. This is also enhanced by
increased fuzziness of the boundary between materials (especially
metamaterials) and structures.
Auxetic effect enables many beneficial effects in the characteristics of
the system that make auxetics superior to conventional systems such as
commercial or military equipment or vehicles. The synclastic double
curvature is one of the important deformation mechanisms in auxetic
materials in bending. This feature is useful for body armours with curved
surfaces to conform better to human bodies such as knee-pads [93,94,
278] and applied in shaping structural components such as nose cones of
aircrafts or vessels and car body parts. Meanwhile, the auxetic defor­
mation allows auxetic seat belts or safety harnesses to get wider when
stretched, thus spreading the load over a larger area, potentially
reducing the force distribution on the body [93]. High resistance of
auxetic materials against shearing and twisting allows them available
for structural components which may fail under shear strain, such as
beams in buildings, sheets used in aircraft or cars [94]. Auxetic effect
can also be used to make lightweight wheels and runflat tires, and they
can be tailored and functionally designed to optimally meet the runflat
requirements for both military and commercial vehicles [279].
Furthermore, auxetic materials and structures are a prospective candi­
date for aerospace engineering [280,281], such as auxetic design of
morphing airfoil [282,283] to adjust wing’s shape adaptable to all flight
situations for optimal aerodynamic performance. Combined with the
actuators, sensors and controller techniques, auxetic morphing wings
may bring a revolution and drive the next generation of aircraft with
“smart structures” [284]. However, morphing requires structural
compliance which often conflicts with the stiffness requirements of the
prescribed aerodynamic loads [282]. Also, the ability to sustain large
deformations without exceeding yield and fatigue conditions is required
to achieve repeatability, and smooth deformations are required for
aerodynamic efficiency. All these issues should be overcome and there is
a lot to be learnt. Overall, application-specific research on auxetic ma­
terials and structures requires a lot of development [91]. Design and
J. Zhang et al.
modeling of novel auxetic materials and structures is still on the way.
Moreover, a common limitation of auxetic components or products is the
inability to produce them reliably and cost-effectively using techniques
which are suitable for large-scale commercialisation [93].
7.3. Auxetic nanomaterials
Often, intrinsic auxetic mechanisms are used to describe the mech­
anism of two-dimensional nanomaterials such as black phosphorus
[114], monolayer graphene [115,285] and tetra-silicene [116,117].
They are different from the extrinsic mechanisms for bulk or macroscale
materials. More detailed work should be conducted on nanomaterials to
understand their auxetic mechanisms and how the auxetic effect in­
fluences their responses to external lading, e.g., the interaction of bond
stretching and bond angle variation of single-walled nanotubes [286]
and the relation of elastic constants and phonon dispersion of graphene
sheets with varied Poisson’s ratio [287]. Furthermore, due to large
surface-to-volume ratios, surface and edge effects govern such me­
chanical properties as stiffness, strength and toughness of nanomaterials
[288–291]. These unique features may induce considerable auxeticity
into nanomaterials, and the auxeticity may affect their mechanical
properties differently to bulk materials. In turn, traditional bulk auxetic
performance such as enhanced speed of sound or toughness may need
re-examination for graphene and other nanomaterials [96]. Also, some
issues about fabrication of nanomaterials should be paid attention and
overcome. For example, elongation larger than 2% could not be reached
since the structures fracture due to stress concentration in the fragile
glass material [106]. Besides common applications of bulk auxetic ma­
terials as protective devices, it is likely that new and unexpected ap­
plications may emerge for nanoscale auxetics. For example, lattice
constants of some graphene allotropes are tunable, enabling the hollow
lattice structure to be used as a filter [292]. Combinations of the auxetic
effect with other novel characteristics—such as semi-conducting and
negative thermal expansion [293,294], piezoelectric properties and
auxeticity [295,296]—should lead to a rich vein of material function­
ality [79].
Evidently, auxetic materials have the potential to make important
contributions to the development of new and improved structural and
functional materials. Thus, from both the fundamental scientific
perspective and the practical application perspective, it is necessary to
develop an analytical and mechanistic understanding of how auxeticity
affects the physical properties of nanomaterials.
8. Conclusion
This paper reviewed recent advances in the mechanical properties of
auxetic materials and structures. Special focus was awarded to the
current state of experimental research regarding their large deformation
behaviour and energy-absorption performance under quasi-static and
dynamic loading. In turn, this section recaps their significant advances,
limitations, recommendations and speculations for future research.
Evident from existing studies covering their large deformation
behaviour and energy absorption performance, we can see that the in­
dividual properties of geometrical topologies, the wall material and any
filling material affect the plastic Poisson’s ratio (auxeticity). The
deformation and failure modes under quasi-static loading and low-
velocity impact depend not only on the cell geometry, but also on the
physical properties of wall materials, as well as the relative density.
Therefore, one can tune the cell deformation by adjusting these factors.
The deformation behaviour under high-velocity impact is similar to that
of conventional cellular materials: collapse localises at the loading end
owing to the inertia effect. Consequently, we expect that analytical
shock models known for conventional materials can be employed for
solving shock wave issues and predicting shock-induced stress
enhancement in auxetic materials and structures.
Studies demonstrated that their SEA is affected by the loading
31
Composites Part B 201 (2020) 108340
direction and filling materials chosen. Uneven deformation of the
auxetic pads can guide the design of protective devices to avoid direct
transmission of impact to the most vulnerable part of the body. There­
fore, using auxetic effect to induce the deformation path allows us to
tailor the failure modes, stress distribution, load carrying, and particu­
larly the energy absorption of the whole structure. Furthermore, auxetic
cores for sandwich structures can improve the energy-absorption per­
formance and reduce the magnitude of peak force by drawing the ma­
terial to the impact area. Auxetic effect also enable global dominated
deformation of auxetic sandwich, instead of shear-induced local failures
of conventional cellular cores, which is preferable and can effectively
avoid a catastrophe in application.
As of now, limited studies, particularly experimental, have focused
on the large, plastic deformation behaviour and energy absorption
performance of auxetic materials and structures to different loading.
Fundamental physics involved and mechanics in relation to their
deformation mechanisms should be achieved, which will extremely
benefit the improvement of their mechanical performance for safety,
stability and reliability in service. For example, more analytical
modelling and experimental work, particular the cases involving high-
velocity impact and blast loading, should be addressed to predict their
constitutive relationships, wave propagation and failure criteria.
Moreover, implementation of interdisciplinary research on auxetic
metamaterials are greatly encouraged, such as geometric design of base
units for constructing metamaterials and their correlation with meta­
materials’ global performance, which will largely widen their potential
for engineering application. Also, dimensionless analysis should be
launched to form a foundation for studying energy absorption and
impact mechanics of auxetic family, which can be applied to charac­
terise microstructures and design novel metamaterials and even offer a
way of exploring new materials with superior and tuneable perfor­
mance. Additionally, we usually use honeycombs as a benchmark to
evaluate the performance of cellular materials, due to their feasibility
and accessibility in commercial manufacturing and analysis. If possible,
a universal substitute should be promoted to develop, which can offer
opportunities and guidelines for academic research and industry to
design, manufacture, test and evaluate protective structures and
advanced materials including but not being limited to auxetics, as well
as optimise their performance accordingly.
Compared with traditional fabricating techniques, emergence and
development of additive manufacturing could, to some extent, facilitate
the design and manufacture of auxetic materials and structures with
complex geometries. However, the additive manufacturing itself also
needs significant improvement. For examples, optimal procedures and
parameters in printing are imperative to eliminate imperfections and
further ensure good integrity. More printable materials and multiple-
material printing should be exploited to fabricate multifunctional ma­
terials to meet increasingly diverse demands. Besides, reducing
manufacturing cost and improving manufacturing efficiency should be
paid more attention to, which can promote the rapid development and
application of auxetic materials and structures. So far, only limited
experimental work can be found regarding plastic deformation behav­
iour and energy absorption performance of auxetic materials and
structures. We look forward to further development of additive
manufacturing, accompanied by which it is optimistic to foresee the
progress and production of more innovative auxetic materials and
structures with tailored properties.
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence
the work reported in this paper.
J. Zhang et al.
Acknowledgements
They acknowledge, with thanks, the financial support from the
Australian Research Council (Grant Nos. DP160102612 and
DP180102661) and National Natural Science Foundation of China
(Grant Nos. 11872125 and 51808379). Z. You wishes to acknowledge
the support of the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (FA9550-16-1-
0339).
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