Harnessing Eversion Buckling for Ideal Omnidirectional Energy Absorption

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel energy absorption mechanism using eversion buckling in axisymmetric shells, enabling omnidirectional, reusable, and highly tunable energy absorbing structures with superior performance.

Contribution

It discovers and harnesses eversion buckling to create omnidirectional bistable shells, overcoming limitations of traditional structures and enabling highly efficient, load-adaptive energy absorption.

Findings

Achieved near-perfect energy absorption efficiency.

Demonstrated sixfold tunability of damping properties.

Exhibited robust omnidirectional energy absorption performance.

Abstract

Designing materials that can effectively and repeatedly absorb energy from unpredictable directions represents a grand challenge in modern engineering, crucial for applications from vehicle crashworthiness systems to personal protective equipment. While bistable structures offer a promising pathway towards reusable energy absorbers, their functionality is almost universally constrained to a single loading axis, rendering them vulnerable and ineffective against off axis or oblique impacts. Here, we report the discovery and harnessing of eversion buckling, a distinct pitchfork bifurcation phenomenon in axisymmetric shells, to overcome this fundamental limitation. By strategically designing shell geometries to leverage this mechanism, we have engineered structural units with robust, inplane omnidirectional bistability. This property is characterized by a massive and rapid volumetric contraction upon snapping, which is key to its exceptional performance. When assembled, these structures exhibit an ideal, extended stress plateau, leading to a near perfect energy absorption efficiency dramatically outperforming typical energy absorbing materials. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the system's damping capacity far exceeds its constituent material, and highly tunable, spanning a sixfold range of loss factors which enables load adaptive properties. This design strategy, elucidates a clear mechanism rooted in enhanced friction and sequential stress release, paving the way for a new class of robust, reusable, and load adaptive energy absorbing systems.