Liquid Structures: a novel Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) inspired metamaterial

Paolo Gallina; Massimiliano Gei; Lorenzo Scalera; Stefano Seriani

doi:10.1016/j.eml.2020.101119

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arXiv · 2109.15152

Liquid Structures: a novel Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) inspired metamaterial

Paolo Gallina·Massimiliano Gei·Lorenzo Scalera·Stefano Seriani

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Abstract

We present a theoretical framework for new structural metamaterials we refer to as liquid structures: a topology of bistable mechanisms made up of a high number of cells that are sub-mechanisms composed of pseudo-rigid links and joints. The name liquid structures comes from the similarities they present with the kinematics of the constant flow of incompressible fluids they are inspired by in a limited domain. The layout of the cells are obtained through a two-step process where: (i) the node displacements are computed by means of a Computational Fluid Dynamics tool feeding and (ii) the kinematic synthesis of each cell that is subsequently performed. We report two illustrative examples where star- and diamond-type cells are employed. The paper concludes with a detailed discussion about future theoretical and manufacturing challenges arising from this new metamaterial paradigm.

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Paolo Gallina, Massimiliano Gei, Lorenzo Scalera, Stefano Seriani. 2021-09-30. Liquid Structures: a novel Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) inspired metamaterial. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eml.2020.101119

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