Unexpected bending behavior of 2D lattice materials

Abstract

Architected 2D lattice materials are appealing for shape-shifting applications due to the tunable sign of Poisson's ratio. It is commonly believed that the positive and negative Poisson's ratios lead to anticlastic and synclastic curvatures respectively when the material is bent in one direction. Here, taking 2D beam lattices with star-shaped unit cells as examples, we show theoretically and demonstrate experimentally that this is not always true. At a fixed Poisson's ratio, we find a transition between anticlastic and synclastic bending curvatures controlled by the beam's cross-sectional aspect ratio. Such an unexpected behavior roots in the competition between torsion and bending of the beams, and can be well captured by a Cosserat continuum model.