Elastic architected mechanical metamaterials with negative stiffness effect for high energy dissipation and low frequency vibration suppression

Abstract

In this research, mechanical metamaterials with negative stiffness (NS) effect were architected and fabricated for high energy dissipation and low frequency vibration suppression. Periodic cellular metamaterials formed by connecting multiple NS elements in series exhibited hysteresis and lengthy sawtooth loading and unloading plateaus, which made them desirable for use in energy dissipation applications. And the key point was that the deformation of these metamaterials was completely reversible. To determine the underlying cause of hysteresis, the mechanical behavior with phase-transition characteristics was analyzed. Then, a finite element model was built, and the numerical simulation results were compared to the experimental test findings of the metamaterials, and the two were in good agreement, verifying the validity of the model. Furthermore, the influences of structural parameters on mechanical characteristics were systematically investigated and discussed utilizing the numerical models that had undergone experimental validation. The energy dissipation effect resulting from the phase transformation mechanisms could also be applied to the field of vibration control. Corresponding hammer tests were performed to explore the dynamic behavior of the NS metamaterials. The results show that the proposed metamaterials exhibit excellent vibration suppression performance, especially for low frequency vibration mitigation.