Finding the Mechanically Stable States of Prismatic Architected Materials

Advances in fabrication technologies are enabling the production of architected materials with unprecedented properties. While most of these materials are characterized by a fixed geometry, an intriguing avenue is to add internal mechanisms capable of reconfiguring their spatial architecture enabling tunable functionality. Previously we proposed a design strategy based on space-filling extruded polyhedra to create 3D reconfigurable materials comprising a periodic assembly of rigid plates and elastic hinges. Interestingly, when the rigidity constraint of the faces is softened, new folding pathways open up that lead to multiple mechanically stable states. By performing numerical analysis and harnessing symmetries that exits in these geometries, we systematically explore the energy landscape to find the possible stable states. The final goal is to understand and design a wealth of multistable materials that can switch between different mesostructures through applying global stimuli.