Programmable Auxetics
Research | MIT Design Lab | 2017 | In collaboration with Yihyun Lim, Hunmin Koh, Will Walker
“Programmable Auxetics” is an exploration into Auxetic Metamaterials to create programmable materials with tunable stiffness for the application of impact damping across products and scales. The aim of the project is to enable creating variable and controllable stiffness and flexibility throughout an object that is fabricated using a single material.
We have established an approach for designing and optimizing the internal structure of an object based on Auxetic structural patterns, which gives us a full control over the Poisson's value of the designed meso-structured material. Doing so, instead of relying on properties of the base material for achieving the favorable impact-damping performance, the overall material behavior can be programmed through variations in the cellular structure. Combining Computational Design tools and Finite Element Modeling(FEM), we created a platform for design, simulation and fabrication of programmable Auxetic-based metamaterials, which can be fabricated with single materials using fabrication methods ranging from 3D-Printing to injection molding.