Physics

Nonlinear system

Nanotechnology

Instability

Hinge

Mechanics

Structural engineering

Bistability

Metamaterial

Damper

Engineering

Dissipation

Actuator

Artificial intelligence

Composite material

Rigidity (electromagnetism)

Soft robotics

Materials science

Multistability

Stiffness

Computer science

Quantum mechanics

Smart material

Computer vision

Optoelectronics

Morphing

Thermodynamics

Advanced Materials

Developing bistable metamaterials has recently offered a new design paradigm for deployable structures and reusable dampers. While most bistable mechanisms possess inclined/curved struts, a new 3D multistable shellular metamaterial is developed by introducing delicate perforations on the surface of Schwarz's Primitive shellular, integrating the unique properties of shellular materials such as high surface area, stiffness, and energy absorption with the multistability concept. Denoting the fundamental snapping part by motif, certain shellular motifs with elliptical perforations exhibit mechanical bistability. To bring the concept of multistability to a single motif, multistable shellular motifs are developed by introducing multilayer staggered perforations that form hinges and facilitate local instability. Adopting an n-layer staggered perforation (n hinges) design leads to a maximum 2n-1 stable states within one shellular motif during loading and unloading. Three-directional multistable shellulars are attained by extending the perforation design in three orthogonal directions. Harnessing snap-through and snap-back behaviors and self-contact, the introduced multistable perforated shellulars exhibit strong rigidity both in loading and unloading, and enhanced energy dissipation. The introduced design strategy opens up new horizons for creating multidirectional multistable metamaterials with load bearing capabilities for applications in soft robotics, shape-morphing architectures, and reusable and deployable energy absorbers/dampers.

Programmable Multistable Perforated Shellular