Slow kinks in dissipative kirigami

TL;DR

This paper reports the discovery of slow, overdamped kinks in dissipative kirigami metamaterials, enabling applications in shape morphing, object transport, and sensing through controlled viscoelastic patterning.

Contribution

It introduces the concept of slow kinks in overdamped, dissipative metamaterials and demonstrates their use in dynamic shape change and object transport.

Findings

Slow kinks emerge in overdamped dissipative kirigami.

Kinks enable controlled shape morphing and object transport.

Viscoelastic patterning controls the snapping and kink propagation.

Abstract

Mechanical waves that travel without inertia are often encountered in nature -- e.g. motion of plants -- yet such waves remain rare in synthetic materials. Here, we discover the emergence of slow kinks in overdamped metamaterials and we show that they can be used for applications such as sensing, dynamic pattern morphing and transport of objects. To do this, we create dissipative kirigami with suitably patterned viscoelasticity. These kirigami shape-change into different textures depending on how fast they are stretched. We find that if we stretch fast and wait, the viscoelastic kirigami can eventually snap from one texture to another. Crucially, such a snapping instability occurs in a sequence and a travelling overdamped kink emerges. We demonstrate that such kink underpins dynamic shape morphing in 2D kirigami and can be used to transport objects. Our results open avenues for the use of slow kinks in metamaterials, soft robotics and biomimicry.