Sahab Babaee

3D Soft Metamaterials with Negative Poisson's Ratio

Buckling is exploited to design a new class of three-dimensional metamaterials with negative Poissons ratio. A library of auxetic building blocks is identified and procedures are defined to guide their selection and assembly. The auxetic properties of these materials are demonstrated both through experiments and finite element simulations and exhibit excellent qualitative and quantitative agreement.

Harnessing Deformation to Switch On and Off the Propagation of Sound

A new class of architected materials is designed to control the propagation of sound. The proposed system comprises an array of elastomeric helices in background air and is characterized by frequency ranges of strong wave attenuation (bandgaps) in the undeformed configuration. Upon axially stretching the helices, such bandgaps are suppressed, enabling the design of a new class of acoustic switch.

Hierarchical honeycomb auxetic metamaterials

Most conventional materials expand in transverse directions when they are compressed uniaxially resulting in the familiar positive Poisson’s ratio. Here we develop a new class of two dimensional (2D) metamaterials with negative Poisson’s ratio that contract in transverse directions under uniaxial compressive loads leading to auxeticity. This is achieved through mechanical instabilities (i.e., buckling) introduced by structural hierarchy and retained over a wide range of applied compression. This unusual behavior is demonstrated experimentally and analyzed computationally. The work provides new insights into the role of structural organization and hierarchy in designing 2D auxetic metamaterials, and new opportunities for developing energy absorbing materials, tunable membrane filters, and acoustic dampeners.

Three-dimensional adaptive soft phononic crystals

We report a new class of three-dimensional (3D) adaptive phononic crystals whose dynamic response is controlled by mechanical deformation. Using finite element analysis, we demonstrate that the bandgaps of the proposed 3D structure can be fully tuned by the externally applied deformation. In fact, our numerical results indicate that the system acts as a reversible phononic switch: a moderate level of applied strain (i.e., −0.16) is sufficient to completely suppress the bandgap, and upon the release of applied strain, the deformed structure recovers its original shape, which can operate with a sizable bandgap under dynamic loading. In addition, we investigate how material damping significantly affects the propagation of elastic waves in the proposed 3D soft phononic crystal. We believe that our results pave the way for the design of a new class of soft, adaptive, and re-configurable 3D phononic crystals, whose bandgaps can be easily tuned and switched on/off by controlling the applied deformation.

Reconfigurable origami-inspired acoustic waveguides

Researchers use reconfigurable origami-inspired metamaterials to guide and redirect the propagation of sound. We combine numerical simulations and experiments to design a new class of reconfigurable waveguides based on three-dimensional origami-inspired metamaterials. Our strategy builds on the fact that the rigid plates and hinges forming these structures define networks of tubes that can be easily reconfigured. As such, they provide an ideal platform to actively control and redirect the propagation of sound. We design reconfigurable systems that, depending on the externally applied deformation, can act as networks of waveguides oriented along one, two, or three preferential directions. Moreover, we demonstrate that the capability of the structure to guide and radiate acoustic energy along predefined directions can be easily switched on and off, as the networks of tubes are reversibly formed and disrupted. The proposed designs expand the ability of existing acoustic metamaterials and exploit complex waveguiding to enhance control over propagation and radiation of acoustic energy, opening avenues for the design of a new class of tunable acoustic functional systems.

Microfluidic Fabrication and Micromechanics of Permeable and Impermeable Elastomeric Microbubbles

We use droplet microfluidics to produce monodisperse elastomeric microbubbles consisting of gas encapsulated in a polydimethylsiloxane shell. These microbubbles withstand large, repeated deformations without rupture. We perform μN-scale compression tests on individual microbubbles and find their response to be highly dependent on the shell permeability; during deformation, the pressure inside impermeable microbubbles increases, resulting in an exponential increase in the applied force. Finite element models are used to interpret and extend these experimental results enabling the design and development of deformable microbubbles with a predictable mechanical response. Such microbubbles can be designed to repeatedly transit through the narrow constrictions found in a porous medium functioning as probes of the local pressure.

Elastic metamaterials for tuning circular polarization of electromagnetic waves

Electromagnetic resonators are integrated with advanced elastic material to develop a new type of tunable metamaterial. An electromagnetic-elastic metamaterial able to switch on and off its electromagnetic chiral response is experimentally demonstrated. Such tunability is attained by harnessing the unique buckling properties of auxetic elastic materials (buckliballs) with embedded electromagnetic resonators. In these structures, simple uniaxial compression results in a complex but controlled pattern of deformation, resulting in a shift of its electromagnetic resonance, and in the structure transforming to a chiral state. The concept can be extended to the tuning of three-dimensional materials constructed from the meta-molecules, since all the components twist and deform into the same chiral configuration when compressed.

Wave propagation in cross-linked random fiber networks

We numerically investigate the propagation of small-amplitude elastic waves in random fiber networks. Our analysis reveals that the dynamic response of the system is not only controlled by its overall elasticity, but also by the local microstructure. In fact, we find that the longest fiber-segment plays a key role in dynamics when the network is excited with waves of short wavelength. In this case, the Bloch modes are highly non-affine as the longest segments oscillate close to their resonances. Based on this observation, we predict the low frequency dispersion curves of random fiber networks.

Harnessing geometric and material nonlinearities to design tunable phononic crystals

We investigate numerically and experimentally the effects of geometric and material nonlinearities introduced by deformation on the linear dynamic response of two-dimensional phononic crystals. Our results not only show that deformation can be effectively used to tune the band gaps and the directionality of the propagating waves, but also reveal how geometric and material nonlinearities contribute to the tunable response of phononic crystals. Our study provides a better understanding of the tunable response of phononic crystals and opens avenues for the design of systems with optimized properties and enhanced tunability.

Mechanical Properties of Open-Cell Cellular Structures With Rhombic Dodecahedron Cells

We present a series of analytical models and finite element results (FE) for special 3-D open cellular foam to determine the effective material properties of a 3D rhombic dedecahedron open-cell cellular structure. The analytical approach is based on minimizing the total energy associated with small deformation of a single unit cell of the cellular structure. The finite element models were developed for both a single unit cell and three dimensional foam structure and used to obtain the mechanical properties in all three principal directions.Copyright