A novel chemo-mechanical process for

making auxetic foams and for their

reconversion to conventional form*

Joseph N. Grima, Daphne Attard and Ruben Gatt

Department of Chemistry,
University of Malta

* Project led by the University of Malta in collaboration with Methode Electronics

(Malta) Ltd. Finance by the Malta Council for Science & Technology

http://www.auxetic.info
 Introduction

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 Auxetics
x
Poisson’s ratio:  yx  
y

Conventional vs. Auxetic

PULL PULL

x PULL PULL

+ve Poisson’s ratio -ve Poisson’s ratio

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 Properties and applications

• Auxetic nails

Gets shorter & thinner

whilst ‘going in’

Gets longer & fatter

whilst ‘going out’

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 Properties and applications

Auxetic materials are harder to indent…

...In auxetics, the material tends to go

towards the point of impact to become
denser.

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 Properties and applications

A saddle shape is formed when bending a conventional

foam.

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 Properties and applications

A dome shape is formed when bending an auxetic

foam.

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 Properties and applications

• Smart filters

PULL PULL

Smart filters are made of auxetic structures. The stress applied determines
the pore size and thus which particles are filtered.

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 Properties and applications
• Smart dressings
a bandage made from an auxetic microstructure
impregnated with a healing drug.

Smart dressings are a smart way to administer drugs to freshly made wounds.
When wounded a smart dressing is applied, as the wound swells it pulls the
bandage, opening the microstructure and thus releasing the medicine found
inside it. As the wound cures the swelling decreases releasing less medicine.

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 Auxetic foams

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 Process

• First manufactured by Rod Lakes, University of

Wisconsin, Madison, (R. Lakes, Science, 235 (1987)
p. 1038-1040.)

• Produced from commercially available

conventional foams through a process involving:
– Volumetric compression of ~30% in volume
– Heating to the polymer’s softening temperature
– Cooling whilst remaining under compression

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 Typical Procedure
Starting from: Reticulated 30 ppi polyester polyurethane

• Cut conventional foam in the shape of a cuboid of size 35 mm

x 35 mm x 105 mm long;
• Press sample into a mould of dimensions 25 mm x 25 mm x 75
mm (28.6 % strain along each axis);
• Heat at 200 °C for 10 minutes,
Remove from mould
x2
Stretch
Replace in the mould.
• Cool to room temperature
• Heat for 1 hour at 100 °C
Taken from: Smith, Grima, Evans, Acta Mater. 48 (2000) p.4349-4356.
Technique adapted from: Chan and Evans, J. Mater. Sci., 32 (1997) p. 5945-5953.
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 New approach

• Uses solvent instead of heat

• Process involves
– Wetting foam with appropriate solvent
– Compressing the foam volumetrically by 30%
– Allowing the foam to dry well

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 Typical Process

• Starting from: Reticulated 30 ppi polyurethane foam

(Dongguan Dihui Foam Sponge, China)

• Cut conventional foam in the shape of a cylinder of diameter

40mm and length 84mm
• Wet the foam with acetone
• Remove excess solvent
• Press sample into a mould of diameter 26 mm and length
55mm (~35 % strain along each axis);
• Allow the sample to dry completely before removing from
mould

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 Result

JN Grima, D Attard, R Gatt and RN Cassar, Adv. Eng. Mater., 21 (2009)

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 Models

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 Re-entrant structures

Uniaxial
conventional
loading

Compression/
heating process

Uniaxial
auxetic
loading

LJ Gibson and MF Ashby, Cellular Solids, Cambridge Uni. Press, 1997.

IG Masters and KE Evans, Composite Struct, 35 (1996) 403.
KE Evans, A Alderson and FR Christian, J. Chem. Soc. Faraday Trans., 91 (1995) 2671.
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 3D Re-entrant structures
conventional Re-entrant

dodecahedron
foam models

(KE Evans, MA Nkansah and IJ Hutchinson, Acta Metall. Mater., 2 (1994) 1289)

tetrakaidecahedron
foam models

(JB Choi, RS Lakes, J Compos. Mater., 29 (1995) 113.)

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 Missing rib model

Uniaxial
conventional
loading

Compression/
heating process

Uniaxial
auxetic
loading

CW Smith, JN Grima and KE Evans, Acta Mater., 48 (2000) 4349.

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 Rotating rigid units

Uniaxial
conventional
(a) loading

Compression/
heating process
Uniaxial
loading auxetic

(idealised form …
rotating triangles model)

JN Grima, A Alderson and KE Evans, J. Phys. Soc. Jpn, 74 (2005) 1341.

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 Reconversions

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 Process

• Expose auxetic foam to solvent

• Resulting foam is conventional with comparable

dimensions to the original foam

• Auxetic foams made by the thermal method also

lose their auxeticity when in contact with a solvent

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 Result and Implications

Re -
Conversion Conversion
to auxetic to
conventional

• The conversion / re-conversion process can be

repeated for a number of times

• Auxetic foams should not be used in applications

where they come into contact with solvents
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 Acknowledgments…

The financial support of the Malta Council for Science and

Technology and of the Malta Government Scholarship
Scheme (Grant Number ME 367/07/17) is gratefully
acknowledged.

We also thank the ICMAT 2009 Organising committee for their

financial assistance

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 Thank You !

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