Polymer-inspired mechanical metamaterials

TL;DR

This paper introduces polymer-inspired mechanical metamaterials (PIMs) that mimic polymer network mechanisms to achieve enhanced mechanical properties and programmability at a macroscale.

Contribution

It presents a novel design framework for PIMs that incorporates polymer-like deformation and strengthening mechanisms, expanding metamaterial capabilities.

Findings

PIMs enable macroscale strengthening through programmed crosslinking and entanglement.

Design strategies inspired by polymers allow for customizable deformation responses.

Potential applications include soft robotics and compliant connectors.

Abstract

Metamaterials benefit from unique architected patterns to achieve lightweight with exceptional mechanical properties inaccessible to conventional materials. Typical mechanical metamaterials are inspired by crystal-like lattice structures, whose closely packed frameworks often exhibit a rigid mechanical nature. Here, we present polymer-inspired metamaterials (PIMs) by programming deformation and strengthening mechanisms that mimic the mechanical roles of key constituent elements in polymer networks. By combining metamaterial programmability with polymer-inspired structures, we design crosslinking, proto-crystalline order, and entanglement in PIMs to enable macroscale strengthening mechanisms inspired by crosslink, molecular-density, and pre-stretch strengthening in polymers, expanding the metamaterial structure-property design space. This macroscale polymer-inspired programmability also suggests that PIMs could serve as a design platform incorporating the programmability strategies to achieve desired deformation and strengthening responses, holding a potential for applications in soft robotic joints and compliant connectors.