Hongze Wang

Metamaterials benefit from unique architected patterns to achieve lightweight with exceptional mechanical properties inaccessible to conventional materials. Typical mechanical metamaterials are inspired by crystal-like lattice structures, whose closely packed frameworks often exhibit a rigid mechanical nature. Here, we present polymer-inspired metamaterials (PIMs) by programming deformation and strengthening mechanisms that mimic the mechanical roles of key constituent elements in polymer networks. By combining metamaterial programmability with polymer-inspired structures, we design crosslinking, proto-crystalline order, and entanglement in PIMs to enable macroscale strengthening mechanisms inspired by crosslink, molecular-density, and pre-stretch strengthening in polymers, expanding the metamaterial structure-property design space. This macroscale polymer-inspired programmability is demonstrated through PIM-based soft robotic components, including programmable humanoid tissues, robotic fingers, toes and feet, and soft biomimetic exoskeletons.

1. Additive manufacturing (AM) is revolutionising the design and fabrication of metal components. Among AM techniques, powder bed fusion using a laser beam (PBF-LB) has emerged as a critical techno...