FUNDING: HARNESSING LARGE DEFORMATIONS IN INTERLACED ELASTIC NETWORKS

In mechanics, large deformations can occur at both the material and structural scales. In the past, structural engineering has eschewed large deformations, implicating them as the cause of several disastrous failures of rigid structures. However, attention is now turning to how to take advantage of large deformations. Therefore, we propose to investigate 2D interlaced networks of elastic rods and deliberately drive them into the large deformation realm to create novel 3D elastic (and thus reversible) structures with interesting mechanical properties. The core concept is that, under compression, the interlaced continuous rods will bend, twist, and slide with respect to each other, forcing the 2D network into three dimensions in order to minimize the network’s strain energy. The research objectives of this proposal are threefold: to 1) use a mathematical approach to identify interlaced patterns for the purpose of shifting between 2D and 3D states, 2) investigate their reversible mechanical response and establish their performance envelope using an experimental and numerical approach, and 3) design, prototype, and demonstrate the feasibility of interlaced elastic networks at the architectural scale using robotic manufacturing.