Design and testing of 3D-printed micro-architectured polymer materials exhibiting a negative Poisson's ratio

Abstract

This work proposes the complete design cycle for several auxetic materials where the cycle consists of three steps (i) the design of the micro-architecture, (ii) the manufacturing of the material and (iii) the testing of the material. In more precise terms, we aim to obtain domain micro-architectured materials with a prescribed elasticity tensor and Poisson's ratio. In order to reach this goal we use topology optimization via the level set method for the material design process. Specimens are manufactured using a commercial stereo-lithography Ember printer and mechanically tested. The observed displacement and strain fields during tensile testing obtained by digital image correlation match the predictions from the FE simulation.