Popis: |
Naturally available materials are inadequate in many advanced applications, including space. Therefore, functional materials answer the requirement of operation-specific customized characteristics. Soft matter-based metamaterials exhibit various desired physical properties for space applications in terms of mechanical, optical, acoustic, and electromagnetic behavior. A composite metamaterial is studied in this project comprising an intricate hexagonal-shaped fractal geometry of SU-8 with a soft platinum-catalyzed silicone Ecoflex 00-30 infused in the cavities of the rigid skeleton. The finite element models of the proposed metamaterial are developed for computational study. Mechanical behavior in tensile, fatigue, shear, and modal responses are studied using the finite element model. The von-Mises stress, equivalent strain, total deformation, fatigue life, natural frequencies, mode shapes, etc., are among the properties that are investigated in the computational study. This benchmark cases of similar experimental situations are considered to compare and validate the computational model. Results show that the maximum stress is shared by the hard skeleton, and maximum strain is developed in the soft elastomer regions of the metamaterial. The material properties of hard and soft elastomers imply a change in the modal characteristics in terms of natural frequencies. This type of new functional metamaterials opens new opportunities, especially with the fatigue-resistant performances for applications requiring stretchable materials. |