Mechanical Logic using Multi-Plane Mechanical Metamaterials

Metamaterials are architected materials designed to exhibit properties superior to their constituent material. Metamaterial structures are well established in optics, acoustics, and thermodynamics. Additive Manufacturing has enabled the expansion of metamaterial application space into mechanical mechanisms. These architected materials exploit structural deformations and mechanical energies to exhibit unique phenomena that are used to build functional devices.

An advantage of mechanical metamaterials for programmable matter is the ability to build devices that respond to external stimuli via material composition and material architecture.

The novel application of metamaterials within the human body underpins a core research objective of the OncoEng project. Recently Dr. Myant and his team were investigating the suitability of 3D printed metamaterials for non-charge-based logic devices for use in harsh environments, where electronics are often unstable and unreliable. In this paper, previous developments in mechanical logic are investigated and a novel mechanical metamaterial structure that successfully demonstrates AND and OR Boolean logic is shown.

Figure 1: zz, yy, and zy configuration of a mechanical AND gate, with z and y actuation demonstrated by blue and green arrows respectively.

Figure 2: zz, yy, and zy configuration of a mechanical OR gate, with z and y actuation demonstrated by blue and green arrows respectively.

Figure 3: Demonstration of both the correct and incorrect actuation sequence for a zy configured device, with z and y actuation demonstrated by blue and green arrows respectively.

This article was written by Conner Myant, Usam Waheed, and Simon Dobson, as an overview of their recently published article, funded by AWE.

For more information, research article access can be found here.

References:

Waheed, U., C.W. Myant, and S.N. Dobson, Boolean AND/OR mechanical logic using multi-plane mechanical metamaterials. Extreme Mechanics Letters, 2020. 40: p. 100865.