Throughout biology, hierarchy is a recurrent theme in the geometry of structures where strength is achieved with minimal use of material. Acting over vast timescales, evolution has brought about beautiful solutions to problems of optimisation that ar
e only now being understood and incorporated into engineering design. One particular example of this hierarchy is found in the junction between stiff keratinised material and the soft biological matter within the hooves of ungulates. Using this biological interface as a design motif, we investigate the role of hierarchy in the creation of a stiff, robust interface between two materials. We show that through hierarchical design one can manipulate the scaling laws relating constituent material stiffness and overall interface stiffness under both shear and tension loading. Furthermore, we uncover a cascade of scaling laws for the higher order structure and link their origin with competing deformation modes within the structure. We demonstrate that when joining two materials of different stiffness, under shear or tension, hierarchical geometries are linked with beneficial mechanical properties.
Recent progress in advanced additive manufacturing techniques has stimulated the growth of the field of mechanical metamaterials. One area particular interest in this subject is the creation of auxetic material properties through elastic instability.
This paper focuses on a novel methodology in the analysis of auxetic metamaterials through analogy with rigid link lattice systems. Our analytic methodology gives extremely good agreement with finite element simulations for both the onset of elastic instability and post-buckling behaviour including Poissons ratio. The insight into the relationships between mechanisms within lattices and their mechanical behaviour has the potential to guide the rational design of lattice based metamaterials.
The principle of hierarchical design is a prominent theme in many natural systems where mechanical efficiency is of importance. Here we establish the properties of a particular hierarchical structure, showing that high mechanical efficiency is found
in certain loading regimes. We show that in the limit of gentle loading, the optimal hierarchical order increases without bound. We show that the scaling of material required for stability against loading to be withstood can be altered in a systematic, beneficial manner through manipulation of the number of structural length scales optimised upon. We establish the relationship between the Hausdorff dimension of the optimal structure and loading for which the structure is optimised. Practicalities of fabrication are discussed and examples of hierarchical frames of the same geometry constructed from solid beams are shown.
We investigate the buckling under compression of a slender beam with a distributed lateral elastic support, for which there is an associated cost. For a given cost, we study the optimal choice of support to protect against Euler buckling. We show tha
t with only weak lateral support, the optimum distribution is a delta-function at the centre of the beam. When more support is allowed, we find numerically that the optimal distribution undergoes a series of bifurcations. We obtain analytical expressions for the buckling load around the first bifurcation point and corresponding expansions for the optimal position of support. Our theoretical predictions, including the critical exponent of the bifurcation, are confirmed by computer simulations.
