The Mechanical Diode: On the Tracks of James Maxwell Employing Mechanical–Electrical Analogies in the Design of Metamaterials

Following the pioneering idea of James Clerk Maxwell, who first introduced mechanical-electrical analogies in the 19th century, we want to exploit his innovative vision in the design of new metamaterials. Indeed, metamaterials can be defined as engineered materials designed to implement one or more specific functionalities. In particular, we have in mind to realize a mechanical system whose behavior is characterized by a useful response, which is typical of an electrical system. In other words, we want to design a mechanical system whose constitutive behavior is the same as an electrical system, namely a diode. To this end, a pantographic material with perfect pivots can be seen as a mechanical diode. Indeed, it is constituted by two families of straight fibers, with remarkable deformation due to the presence of the hinges and a threshold behavior when the fibers tend to be aligned.