Liquid Structures: a novel Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) inspired metamaterial

TL;DR

This paper introduces liquid structures, a new class of structural metamaterials inspired by fluid flow, created through a CFD-based design process involving pseudo-rigid cell mechanisms.

Contribution

It presents a novel theoretical framework for liquid structures, combining CFD-inspired topology with kinematic synthesis of bistable cell mechanisms.

Findings

Demonstrated design of star- and diamond-type liquid structures

Established a CFD-based two-step process for layout generation

Discussed future challenges in manufacturing and theory

Abstract

We present a theoretical framework for new structural metamaterials we refer to as liquid structures: a topology of bistable mechanisms made up of a high number of cells that are sub-mechanisms composed of pseudo-rigid links and joints. The name liquid structures comes from the similarities they present with the kinematics of the constant flow of incompressible fluids they are inspired by in a limited domain. The layout of the cells are obtained through a two-step process where: (i) the node displacements are computed by means of a Computational Fluid Dynamics tool feeding and (ii) the kinematic synthesis of each cell that is subsequently performed. We report two illustrative examples where star- and diamond-type cells are employed. The paper concludes with a detailed discussion about future theoretical and manufacturing challenges arising from this new metamaterial paradigm.