Design Optimization of 3D Printed Chiral Metamaterials with Simultaneous High Stiffness and High Damping

For vibration mitigation and impact resistance, energy dissipation is desired in mechanical and aerospace structures to ensure their required loading capacity and dynamic performance. However, designing a structure with simultaneously high dissipation and high stiffness simultaneously is challenging due to the inherent tie between the material damping and stiffness. In this work, a tetra-chiral metamaterial beam design, which possesses enhanced damping thanks to local resonance, is proposed and optimized for simultaneously high stiffness, high dissipation, and high mass efficiency. Various designs with different geometric configurations are explored, and a design optimization framework is developed with stiffness, damping, and mass as the main metrics. Finally, the optimized dissipative tetra-chiral metamaterial beam designs that achieve high dissipation performance with consistent stiffness and mass efficiency are presented and compared to the initial one.