Although the evidence is still limited, a growing body of research suggests music may have beneficial effects for diseases such as Parkinson’s.
Image credit: Shutterstock/agsandrew.
New Research In
Physical Sciences
Featured Portals
Articles by Topic
Biological Sciences
Featured Portals
Articles by Topic
Edited by Itai Cohen, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, and accepted by Editorial Board Member John A. Rogers October 12, 2020 (received for review July 27, 2020)
Significance
Mechanical metamaterials are an interesting platform to reproduce atomistic-scale phenomena at the macroscale and to exploit them to achieve additional functionalities. An interesting feature of many ordered solid-state materials is the formation of domain walls that separate different phases. While these interfaces have been reproduced in a variety of mechanical materials, the understanding of how to control them is still poor owing to their structural complexity. Here, we use a combination of experimental, numerical, and theoretical tools to engineer the domain walls emerging upon uniaxial compression in a mechanical metamaterial based on the rotating-squares mechanism. Our study reveals additional territories in the mechanical metamaterials design space which could unlock more tools for information encryption, stiffness tuning, and wave guiding.
Abstract
Domain walls, commonly occurring at the interface of different phases in solid-state materials, have recently been harnessed at the structural scale to enable additional modes of functionality. Here, we combine experimental, numerical, and theoretical tools to investigate the domain walls emerging upon uniaxial compression in a mechanical metamaterial based on the rotating-squares mechanism. We first show that these interfaces can be generated and controlled by carefully arranging a few phase-inducing defects. We establish an analytical model to capture the evolution of the domain walls as a function of the applied deformation. We then employ this model as a guideline to realize interfaces of complex shape. Finally, we show that the engineered domain walls modify the global response of the metamaterial and can be effectively exploited to tune its stiffness as well as to guide the propagation of elastic waves.
Footnotes
↵1B.D. and S.Y. contributed equally to this work.
- ↵2To whom correspondence may be addressed. Email: bertoldi{at}seas.harvard.edu.
Author contributions: B.D., S.Y., V.T., and K.B. designed research; B.D., S.Y., and A.E.F. performed research; B.D., S.Y., V.T., and K.B. analyzed data; and B.D., S.Y., A.E.F., and K.B. wrote the paper.
The authors declare no competing interest.
This article is a PNAS Direct Submission. I.C. is a guest editor invited by the Editorial Board.
This article contains supporting information online at https://www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.1073/pnas.2015847117/-/DCSupplemental.
Data Availability.
All study data are included in this article and SI Appendix.
Published under the PNAS license.
References
Log in using your username and password
Log in through your institution
You may be able to gain access using your login credentials for your institution. Contact your library if you do not have a username and password.
If your organization uses OpenAthens, you can log in using your OpenAthens username and password. To check if your institution is supported, please see this list. Contact your library for more details.
Purchase access
You may purchase access to this article. This will require you to create an account if you don't already have one.
Characterization, stability, and application of domain walls in flexible mechanical metamaterials
Sign up for Article Alerts
Article Classifications
- Physical Sciences
- Engineering
Jump to section
You May Also be Interested in
Astronomers thought they’d finally figured out where gold and other heavy elements in the universe came from. In light of recent results, they’re not so sure.
Image credit: Science Source/Tom McHugh.
Researchers are still trying to understand what causes this strong correlation between neural and social networks.
Image credit: Shutterstock/Yeongsik Im.
Amanda Rodewald, Ivan Rudik, and Catherine Kling talk about the hazards of ozone pollution to birds.
CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing can improve the effectiveness of spermatogonial stem cell transplantation in mice and livestock, a study finds.
Image credit: Jon M. Oatley.