Negative stiffness honeycombs as tunable elastic metamaterials

Acoustic and elastic metamaterials are media with a subwavelength structure that behave as effective materials displaying atypical effective dynamic properties. These material systems are of interest because the design of their sub-wavelength structure allows for direct control of macroscopic wave dispersion. One major design limitation of most metamaterial structures is that the dynamic response cannot be altered once the microstructure is manufactured. However, the ability to modify wave propagation in the metamaterial with an external stimulus is highly desirable for numerous applications and therefore remains a significant challenge in elastic metamaterials research. In this work, a honeycomb structure composed of a doubly periodic array of curved beams, known as a negative stiffness honeycomb (NSH), is analyzed as a tunable elastic metamaterial. The nonlinear static elastic response that results from large deformations of the NSH unit cell leads to a large variation in linear elastic wave dispersion associated with infinitesimal motion superposed on the externally imposed pre-strain. A finite element model is utilized to model the static deformation and subsequent linear wave motion at the pre-strained state. Analysis of the slowness surface and group velocity demonstrates that the NSH exhibits significant tunability and a high degree of anisotropy which can be used to guide wave energy depending on static pre-strain levels. In addition, it is shown that partial band gaps exist where only longitudinal waves propagate. The NSH therefore behaves as a meta-fluid, or pentamode metamaterial, which may be of use for applications of transformation elastodynamics such as cloaking and gradient index lens devices. Published by AIP Publishing.