Diffusive buckling fronts in lattice-based metamaterials

Fuente: arXiv
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Auteurs principaux: Meijer, Jochem G., Shaik, Faadil, Jaeger, Heinrich M.
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2026
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author Meijer, Jochem G.
Shaik, Faadil
Jaeger, Heinrich M.
author_facet Meijer, Jochem G.
Shaik, Faadil
Jaeger, Heinrich M.
contents Mechanical metamaterials can be designed to exhibit unique mechanical properties, including tunable auxetic behavior as well as multi-stability, which arise from the geometry and configuration of the constituent building blocks. Lattice-based metamaterials, in particular, provide lightweight platforms where local instabilities can dictate the global response, with applications in energy routing, vibration isolation, and impact mitigation. In underdamped structures, perturbations have been found to propagate as nonlinear waves, e.g., transition waves or solitons. Here we investigate the opposite limit of overdamped, highly dissipative lattice metamaterials. Focusing on three-dimensional structures, we uncover how buckling instabilities, triggered by compression, propagate as fronts that shape the macroscopic behavior. We demonstrate in experiments on 3D-printed simple cubic lattices how global and local buckling modes can be controlled via the lattice geometry. By incorporating viscoelastic dissipation into a 3D-continuum model, we show that strain-driven buckling fronts obey coupled reaction-diffusion equations. The diffusion and reaction coefficients, determined by local geometry, material properties, and strain, select the propagation direction and enable steering of the fronts. This establishes a predictive and experimentally validated framework for the control of cascading mechanical instabilities in lattice-based metamaterials.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2601_14520
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Diffusive buckling fronts in lattice-based metamaterials
Meijer, Jochem G.
Shaik, Faadil
Jaeger, Heinrich M.
Soft Condensed Matter
Mechanical metamaterials can be designed to exhibit unique mechanical properties, including tunable auxetic behavior as well as multi-stability, which arise from the geometry and configuration of the constituent building blocks. Lattice-based metamaterials, in particular, provide lightweight platforms where local instabilities can dictate the global response, with applications in energy routing, vibration isolation, and impact mitigation. In underdamped structures, perturbations have been found to propagate as nonlinear waves, e.g., transition waves or solitons. Here we investigate the opposite limit of overdamped, highly dissipative lattice metamaterials. Focusing on three-dimensional structures, we uncover how buckling instabilities, triggered by compression, propagate as fronts that shape the macroscopic behavior. We demonstrate in experiments on 3D-printed simple cubic lattices how global and local buckling modes can be controlled via the lattice geometry. By incorporating viscoelastic dissipation into a 3D-continuum model, we show that strain-driven buckling fronts obey coupled reaction-diffusion equations. The diffusion and reaction coefficients, determined by local geometry, material properties, and strain, select the propagation direction and enable steering of the fronts. This establishes a predictive and experimentally validated framework for the control of cascading mechanical instabilities in lattice-based metamaterials.
title Diffusive buckling fronts in lattice-based metamaterials
topic Soft Condensed Matter
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.14520