Abstract
Designing Structural Metamaterials †
João Cardoso 1, * , Patrícia Almeida 1 , Gonçalo Catatão 1 , Guilherme Cândida 1 , Frederico Páscoa 2 , Daniela Silva 1 ,
Carla Machado 2 , João P. Borges 1 and Alexandre Velhinho 1
1
2
*
†
CENIMAT/I3N, Materials Science Department, NOVA School of Science and Technology, Universidade
NOVA de Lisboa, 2829-516 Caparica, Portugal;
[email protected] (P.A.);
[email protected] (G.C.);
[email protected] (G.C.);
[email protected] (D.S.);
[email protected] (J.P.B.);
[email protected] (A.V.)
UNIDEMI, Mechanical and Industrial Engineering Department, NOVA School of Science and Technology,
Universidade NOVA de Lisboa, 2829-516 Caparica, Portugal;
[email protected] (F.P.);
[email protected] (C.M.)
Correspondence:
[email protected]; Tel.: +351-932905117
Presented at the Materiais 2022, Marinha Grande, Portugal, 10–13 April 2022.
Keywords: auxetics; negative thermal expansion; anepectic; composites; additive manufacturing
Citation: Cardoso, J.; Almeida, P.;
Catatão, G.; Cândida, G.; Páscoa, F.;
Silva, D.; Machado, C.; Borges, J.P.;
Velhinho, A. Designing Structural
Metamaterials. Mater. Proc. 2022, 8,
55. https://doi.org/10.3390/
materproc2022008055
Academic Editors: Geoffrey Mitchell,
Nuno Alves, Carla Moura and
Joana Coutinho
Published: 31 May 2022
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4.0/).
Metamaterials are materials that exhibit properties that are opposite to those normally
found in nature. For structural metamaterials, the most studied cases are those showing
negative Poisson’s ratio (also known as auxetics), negative coefficient of thermal expansion
(NTE), and/or negative linear compressibility (also known as negative bulk modulus).
These properties can be found in nature only for very specific cases and conditions.
Cork is known to have a Poisson’s ratio of zero while re-entrant polymer foams and some
metallic crystals have a Poisson’s ratio below zero [1]. Water is known to have a negative
thermal expansion coefficient between the temperatures of 0 and 4 ◦ C, while ZrW2O8 shows
the same behavior between the temperatures of 0.3 and 1050 Kelvin [2]. Furthermore, there
are very few materials that naturally present negative linear compressibility, as shown by
most research carried out on man-made structures.
Anepectic materials, on the other hand, which simultaneously present both negative
Poisson’s ratio and negative thermal expansion, while being potentially advantageous
in fields as diverse as those of medicine, defense, sports, automobile, and aeronautics,
have only recently come to light, and as such still warrant in-depth studies. The anepectic
behavior can be obtained by coupling two or more adequately chosen base materials with
specific architectures.
By observing the five categories of known auxetic materials (re-entrant, chiral, rotating,
crumpled sheet, and perforated sheet), it is possible to choose which parts of a structure
should be replaced with a second material of suitable stiffness and thermal expansion to
transform an auxetic structure into an anepectic one. This approach was previously applied
for 2D meshes [3], and current work has extended similar results into the third dimension.
The current work reports a series of simulation and experimental results on rotating
and re-entrant 3D metamaterials manufactured by the filament deposition method, as well
as the underlying theories and state-of-the-art presentation [4].
Author Contributions: Conceptualization: A.V., J.P.B., C.M.; Methodology: A.V., J.P.B., C.M., J.C.;
Software: F.P., J.C., C.M.; Validation: J.C., P.A., G.C. (Gonçalo Catatão), G.C. (Guilherme Cândida),
D.S.; Formal analysis: J.C., P.A., G.C. (Gonçalo Catatão), G.C. (Guilherme Cândida), D.S.; Investigation: J.C., P.A., G.C. (Gonçalo Catatão), G.C. (Guilherme Cândida), D.S.; Resources: A.V., J.P.B., C.M.;
Data curation: J.C.; Writing—Original draft preparation: J.C.; Writing—Review and editing: A.V.,
J.P.B.; Visualization: J.C., P.A., G.C. (Gonçalo Catatão), G.C. (Guilherme Cândida), D.S.; Supervision;
A.V., J.P.B., C.M.; Project administration: A.V., J.P.B.; Funding acquisition: A.V.; J.P.B., C.M., J.C. All
authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.
Mater. Proc. 2022, 8, 55. https://doi.org/10.3390/materproc2022008055
https://www.mdpi.com/journal/materproc
Mater. Proc. 2022, 8, 55
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Funding: The authors acknowledge Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT - MCTES) for
its financial support via the project UIDB/00667/ 2020 (UNIDEMI) and UIDB/50025/2020-2023
(CENIMAT/I3N). João Cardoso acknowledges the funding by FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e
Tecnologia under the research grant SFRH/BD/146227/2019.
Institutional Review Board Statement: Not applicable.
Informed Consent Statement: Not applicable.
Data Availability Statement: No data has been reported in this study.
Conflicts of Interest: The authors declare no conflict of interest.
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