Orthotropic metamaterials with freely tailorable elastic constants

Abstract

To control mechanical waves and structural vibrations, an important method is to design metamaterials with tailored elastic constants, but it is very difficult. In this paper, a simple and universal metamaterial design method is proposed. This orthotropic metamaterial is composed of elements arrayed periodically in space. The element includes two cuboid structures. The first structure is the basic structure of the element, and the second structure is the transformation of the first structure of the element. The first structure of the element is a cuboid structure composed of 24 bars connected by 8 nodes, and the second structure of the element is a cuboid structure composed of 36 bars connected by 14 nodes. This metamaterial has six independent elastic constants, so there is a large degree of freedom in the material design. Therefore, it has great application value in the fields of mechanical metamaterials, elastic wave metamaterials, acoustic metamaterials, and seismic metamaterials, and has also laid the foundation for realizing the dream of controlling mechanical waves and structural vibrations.