Nanowerk May 25, 2021
Flexible metamaterials often harness zero-energy deformation modes. To date they have a single property, such as a single shape change, or are pluripotent. An international team of researchers (the Netherlands, Switzerland) has introduced a class of oligomodal metamaterials that encode a few distinct properties that can be selectively controlled under uniaxial compression. They demonstrated this concept by introducing a combinatorial design space containing various families of metamaterials. They included monomodal (with a single zero-energy deformation mode); oligomodal (with a constant number of zero-energy deformation modes); and plurimodal (with many zero-energy deformation modes), whose number increases with system size. They confirmed the multifunctional nature of oligomodal metamaterials using both boundary textures and viscoelasticity. The ability of the oligomodal metamaterials to host multiple mechanical responses within a single structure paves the way toward multifunctional materials and devices including shock absorbers, earthquake resistant materials, flow regulating pressure valves…read more. Open Access TECHNICAL ARTICLE
Oligomodal materials…Credit: PNAS May 25, 2021, 118 (21) e2018610118Â