Parametric analysis of a cylindrical negative Poisson's ratio structure

Much research related to negative Poisson's ratio (NPR), or auxetic, structures is emerging these days. Several types of 3D NPR structure have been proposed and studied, but almost all of them had cuboid shapes, which were not suitable for certain engineering applications. In this paper, a cylindrical NPR structure was developed and researched. It was expected to be utilized in springs, bumpers, dampers and other similar applications. For the purpose of parametric analysis, a method of parametric modeling of cylindrical NPR structures was developed using MATLAB scripts. The scripts can automatically establish finite element models, invoke ABAQUS, read results etc. Subsequently the influences of structural parameters, including number of cells, number of layers and layer heights, on the uniaxial compression behavior of cylinder NPR structures were researched. This led to the conclusion that the stiffness of the cylindrical NPR structure was enhanced on increasing the number of cells and reducing the effective layer height. Moreover, small numbers of layers resulted in a late transition area of the load–displacement curve from low stiffness to high stiffness. Moreover, the middle contraction regions were more apparent with larger numbers of cells, smaller numbers of layers and smaller effective layer heights. The results indicate that the structural parameters had significant effects on the load–displacement curves and deformed shapes of cylindrical NPR structures. This paper is conducive to the further engineering applications of cylindrical NPR structures. (paper)