1206.0325 (Graeme Walter Milton)

Adaptable nonlinear bimode metamaterials with rigid bars, pivots, and
actuators    [PDF]

Graeme Walter Milton

A large family of planar non-linear bimode metamaterials are constructed from bars and pivots. They are affine materials in the sense that their macroscopic deformations are only affine deformations. Bimode means that the paths of all possible macroscopic deformations lie on a two dimensional surface in the three dimensional space of invariants describing the deformation (excluding translations and rotations). By adding two actuators inside a single microscopic cell one can control the macroscopic deformation, which may be useful for the design of adaptive structures. The design of adaptable nonlinear affine trimode metamaterials (for which the macroscopic deformations lie within a three-dimensional region in the space of invariants) is discussed, although their realization remains an open problem. Examples are given of non-affine unimode and non-affine bimode materials.

View original: http://arxiv.org/abs/1206.0325