A novel auxetic structure with enhanced impact performance by means of periodic tessellation with variable poisson’s ratio

This study proposes a new approach to designing impact resistant elastomeric structures using innovative bi-dimensional patterns composed of a combination of circular and elliptical voids with variable aspect ratios. Key to the design are discrete sections each with different effective Poisson’s ratios ranging from negative to positive. Cubic samples 80 × 80 × 80 cm in size with different void geometry and effective Poisson’s ratios were fabricated and successively tested under compressive and low-velocity impact loads as a proof-of-concept, showing good agreement with finite element simulations. The numerical comparisons for different porosity levels demonstrated that the variable Poisson’s ratio materials resulted in better impact responses compared to those characterized by a positive (constant) value of the effective Poisson’s ratio. The promising results also show that the variable shape of the voids can lead to a modular trigger of overall effective auxetic behavior, opening up new ways design and use auxetic macro-structures with variable porosity and variable Poisson’s ratio for a wide range of applications and, in particular, for impact and protecting devices.