A novel gear-based tunable metamaterial for energy absorption and vibration suppression characteristics

Abstract

Actively tunable mechanical metamaterials hold significant promise for applications in active vibration isolation and dynamic property adjustment. This work constructs a continuously steady-state mechanical metamaterial with built-in actively tunable mechanical properties, using micro-gears as the fundamental unit cell. Based on this, the Hashin failure criterion is introduced to simulate the nonlinear deformation and failure behavior of anisotropic metamaterials under uniaxial compression. Furthermore, the energy absorption behavior of gear metamaterials is investigated, discussing the influence of various structural parameters on energy absorption and specific energy absorption performance. Additionally, planetary gear metamaterial unit cell were fabricated using 3D printing, and vibration attenuation tests were designed to evaluate the vibration suppression behavior of the engineered metamaterials. The results indicate that the planetary gear metamaterials exhibit rich nonlinear deformation behavior. The introduction of planetary gears effectively enhances the unit cell’s resistance to deformation and tunability. Metamaterials with a higher number of teeth and smaller modulus demonstrate superior energy absorption performance. At appropriate frequencies, planetary gear metamaterials can achieve vibration control, with their performance positively correlated to the material’s compliance.