Unit Cell Modelling of Auxetic Structure

Abstract

Auxetic material structures exhibit a negative Poisson ratio. The structure expands in the axial and transverse directions under tensile loading and vice versa under compression loading. Many fabricated designs for auxetic materials exist such as re-entrant hexagonal, chiral, and arrowhead geometries. This paper studies the unit cell of the re-entrant hexagonal geometry to understand how changing the internal angle and fillet radius of the structure affects the Poisson’s ratio. The material chosen for this study is acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) due to its availability and frequent use in additive manufacturing. The study was based on finite element analysis. It is observed that the direction of load applied to the unit cell affects the unit cell strain, Poisson’s ratio, and maximum load capacity before failure responses. It is noticed that the re-entrant cell starts by showing a standard non-auxetic behavior until it reaches a specific axial strain value. A quadratic correlation is identified between axial and transverse strain. Designing an auxetic structure starts with understanding the behavior of a unit cell structure. The auxetic structure design is a complex process that requires a compromise between auxetic property to be achieved and load capacity via avoiding stress concentration zones.