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Mechanical metamaterials are valued for their diverse properties and potential applications. Due to the instability and large deformability of soft mechanical metamaterials (SMMs), geometric reorganization will occur and lead to some unusual properties. It is possible to change the properties of materials by varying the parameters. Conventional SMMs contain a periodic distribution of holes with the same size and shape, which can be changed to a lesser extent. Periodic dispersion of regular through-hole patterns of various sizes or shapes into elastomers, resulting in metamaterials with more mechanical functionality and deformation scenarios. In this paper, we investigated the influence of parameters on the buckling mechanical behavior of SMMs and the buckling mechanical behavior of structures with multiple sizes and geometric shapes. The parameters studied include geometric parameters (pore shape, porosity and area ratio) and physical parameters (Poisson's ratio and compression mode). Simulation of the buckling behavior of SMMs uses the finite element method. The finite element software ABAQUS is used, taking into account the almost incompressible characteristics of materials, the triangular quadratic plane strain hybrid element is selected (CPE6H). Numerical calculation gives the following results: Area ratio, pore shape and compression mode have obvious effects on buckling behavior, but Poisson's ratio has little effect; the influence of parameters on the buckling critical strains varied for SMMs with various pore shapes; very different buckling behaviors will result from swapping out the pattern of holes with the same size or shape for holes with two different sizes or shapes; the expression of buckling behavior is also varied when the mix of hole shapes is modified. These findings demonstrate that the design parameters may be used to achieve the desired buckling behaviors. This is a new method that can be used to control the deformation of structures; modify the properties of the SMMs without changing stiffness; simplify the structures without significantly changing the material properties. The design path of mechanical metamaterials is increased. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Design of mechanical metamaterials is typically realized by repeating microstructured building blocks or unit cells. Microstructures of these unit cells can be identical, whereas individual design of each cell and various combinations of unit cells definitely offer more freedoms and possibilities for combinatorial design of metamaterials. Unfortunately, this combinatorial design problem is prohibitively challenging, if not impossible, due mainly to its huge number of combinatorial cases. This paper poses and addresses the combinatorial optimization of a metabeam, aiming at maximizing its critical buckling load. The problem was conceptualized and solved by combination of ML accelerated surrogate modeling and optimization algorithm, and buckling and post-buckling performance of the optimal design was validated by high-fidelity simulations and experiments. The efforts provide efficient tools for combinatorial design of mechanical metamaterials. We publicly share all the data and codes for implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Generating and manipulating valley polarization in a controlled method is significant. The inherently broken centrosymmetry of the buckled honeycomb structures gives it both ferroelectricity and valley degree of freedom, which provides an opportunity to realize electrically controlled valley polarization. In the first step, we explored the origin of buckling. The hexagonal structure is polar due to buckling of the surface, but the degree of buckling and the energy barrier to switching electric polarization are determined not solely by the chemical composition. We combined the electronegativity difference, bond length and the distribution of charge density to describe quantificationally the polarity of chemical bonds. It shows the characteristics of relatively long bond-length but relatively small electronegativity-difference. For exploring the ferroelectricity of buckling structures and the behavior of ferroelectric (FE) control of the valley degree of freedom, the β -GaP is used as a model system to elucidate the strain effect on FE behavior and the magnetic proximity effect on the polarization and switching of valley. We found that the spontaneous polarization is positively correlated with the electronegativity difference within a certain range, and the compression strain can effectively manipulate spontaneous polarization and switch barrier. A combination of the magnetic proximity effect and the inversion of electric polarization can generate and switch valley polarization effectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]