Constitutive behavior of asymmetric multi-material honeycombs with bi-level variably-thickened composite architecture

Abstract

Bi-level tailoring of cellular metamaterials involving a dual design space of unit cell and elementary beam level architectures has recently gained traction for the ability to achieve extreme elastic constitutive properties along with modulating multi-functional mechanical behavior in an unprecedented way. This article proposes an efficient analytical approach for the accurate evaluation of all constitutive elastic constants of asymmetric multi-material variably-thickened hexagonal lattices by considering the combined effect of bending, stretching, and shearing deformations of cell walls along with their rigid rotation. A tri-member unit cell is conceptualized, wherein all nine constitutive constants are obtained through the mechanics under one cell wall direction and subsequent repetitive coordinate transformations. We enhance the design space of lattice metamaterials substantially here by introducing multiple exploitable dimensions such as asymmetric geometry, multi-material unit cells and variably-thickened cell walls, wherein the conventional monomaterial auxetic and non-auxetic hexagonal configurations can be analyzed as special cases along with other symmetric and asymmetric lattices such as a range of rectangular and rhombic geometries. The generic analytical approach along with extensive numerical results presented in this paper opens up new avenues for efficient optimized design of the next-generation multi-functional lattices and cellular metamaterials with highly tailored effective elastic properties.