Sequential Snapping and Pathways in a Mechanical Metamaterial

TL;DR

This paper introduces a mechanical metamaterial with tunable hysterons that exhibit memory effects, demonstrating control over their pathways through geometric design and boundary tilting, and exploring coupling effects with shear modes.

Contribution

It presents a novel mechanical metamaterial where hysteron properties and pathways can be precisely tuned via geometry and boundary conditions, advancing the design of materials with targeted memory pathways.

Findings

Hysteron properties can be tuned by geometric design.

Pathways are controllable by boundary tilting.

Coupling with shear modes affects hysteron behavior.

Abstract

Materials which feature bistable elements, hysterons, exhibit memory effects. Often these hysterons are difficult to observe or control directly. Here we introduce a mechanical metamaterial in which slender elements, interacting with pushers, act as mechanical hysterons. We show how we can tune the hysteron properties and pathways under cyclic compression by the geometric design of these elements and how we can tune the pathways of a given sample by tilting one of the boundaries. Furthermore, we investigate the effect of the coupling of a global shear mode to the hysterons, as an example of the interactions between hysteron and non-hysteron degrees of freedom. We hope our work will inspire further studies on designer matter with targeted pathways.