Phase-transforming and switchable metamaterials

This paper demonstrates a new soft structure that uses a meso-or macro-scale elastic instability to generate a shape-memory effect similar to that exhibited by a ferroelastic material. It demonstrates the phase transitions, state switching, and shape-memory effects in this system, both in experiment and in simulation. The new class of materials described in the paper is potentially useful, since it comprises what are effectively shape-memory alloys of arbitrarily low modulus and arbitrarily large remnant strain. The reproduction of properties of materials usually associated with atomic-or molecular-level changes in structure using meso-scale structural opens the door to development of new, soft materials with new properties and functions. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.