Elastic Vector Solitons in Soft Architected Materials

Abstract

We demonstrate experimentally, numerically, and analytically that soft architected materials can support the propagation of elastic vector solitons. More specifically, we focus on structures comprising a network of squares connected by thin and highly deformable ligaments and investigate the propagation of planar nonlinear elastic waves. We find that for sufficiently large amplitudes two components-one translational and one rotational-are coupled together and copropagate without dispersion. Our results not only show that soft architected materials offer a new and rich platform to study the propagation of nonlinear waves, but also open avenues for the design of a new generation of smart systems that take advantage of nonlinearities to control and manipulate the propagation of large amplitude vibrations.

Viscoelastic Snapping Metamaterials

“…Static responses of interest span a wide range of tunable behavior, such as auxetic [1,2,3], programmable [4,5], shape-changing [6,7], non-reciprocal [8] to chiral responses [9], often by harnessing nonlinear mechanics and snap-through instabilities [4,5,10,11,12]. Interesting dynamical responses include shock absorption [13,14,15,16] and soliton propagation [17,18] and transition waves [19,20]. Importantly, a compliant mechanism framework [4,10,21,6,8,19,20,22,17,18] is often employed to capture qualitatively the mechanical response and to explore the design space.…”

“…Interesting dynamical responses include shock absorption [13,14,15,16] and soliton propagation [17,18] and transition waves [19,20]. Importantly, a compliant mechanism framework [4,10,21,6,8,19,20,22,17,18] is often employed to capture qualitatively the mechanical response and to explore the design space. However so far, the effect of the constitutive materials' dissipation has been largely overlooked for nonlinear metamaterials.…”

Reversible signal transmission in an active mechanical metamaterial

“…In the inner region, we pose a perturbation solution of the form where f 0 (z) and h 0 (z) correspond to the shape of the fast wave at κ = 0, given by equation (14). Full details of the perturbation solution in the inner region are given in the supporting material.…”

“…Simple metamaterials consist of a one, two, or three-dimensional array of elements connected by links [1][2][3] that may be elastic [4][5][6][7], magnetic [8,9] or electrostatic [4]. Mechanical metamaterials are highly tuneable [10][11][12] and by altering the structure of these elements, and the properties of the links, materials have been developed that selectively transmit signals [13,14], behave as logic gates [5,15] or buckle after the application of external stimulus [2]. There are many recent studies that experimentally realise simple mechanical metamaterials [6,14,[16][17][18][19]].…”

Propagation of elastic solitons in chains of pre-deformed beams

“…Following the seminal numerical experiment of Fermi-Pasta-Ulam-Tsingou [1], which was related by Zabusky and Kruskal to the propagation of solitons [2], a variety of model equations, solution methods and experimental platforms have been developed to investigate the dynamics of discrete and nonlinear one-dimensional mechanical systems across many scales [3][4][5][6][7][8]. At the macroscopic scale, propagation of solitary waves has been observed in a variety of nonlinear mechanical systems, including chains of elastic beads [9][10][11][12][13][14], tensegrity structures [15], origami chains [16], wrinkled and creased helicoids [17] and flexible architected solids [18][19][20][21]. Moreover, it has been found that even at the molecular scale solitons affect the properties of a variety of onedimensional structures, including macromolecular crystals [22], polymer chains [23][24][25][26], DNA and protein molecules [27][28][29][30].…”