sgfinnegan

Join the Boydston Group!

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The Boydston group is recruiting from the Fall 2023 UW-Madison Chemistry Graduate Student cohort! Learn more about our lab’s work with polymer synthesis, photoredox ROMP, mechanochemistry, and 3D printing by joining us for:

Group meetings: 3:00-5:00pm on Mondays in 2401
Literature group meetings: 3:00-4:30pm, biweekly Thursdays starting 9/14 in 2401
You can also get to know everyone by joining us for social events such as:

Bowling at the Sett on Wednesday 9/20, 6pm at Union South
Pumpkin Carving on Wednesday 10/25, 6pm in Union South (room TBD, you’re welcome to wear a Halloween costume)
Game Night on Wednesday 11/15, 6pm in Union South (room TBD)
Please RSVP to social events or send questions to Sarah (sgfinnegan@wisc.edu).

Dependence of the kinetic energy absorption capacity of bistable mechanical metamaterials on impactor mass and velocity

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Using an alternative mechanism to dissipation or scattering, bistable structures and mechanical metamaterials have shown promise for mitigating the detrimental effects of impact by reversibly locking energy into strained material. Herein, we extend prior works on impact absorption via bistable metamaterials to computationally explore the dependence of kinetic energy transmission on the velocity and mass of the impactor, with strain rates exceeding 10 2 s−1. We observe a large dependence on both impactor parameters, ranging from significantly better to worse performance than a comparative linear material. We then correlate the variability in performance to solitary wave formation in the system and give analytical estimates of idealized energy absorption capacity under dynamic loading. In addition, we find a significant dependence on damping accompanied by a qualitative difference in solitary wave propagation within the system. The complex dynamics revealed in this study offer potential future guidance for the application of bistable metamaterials to applications including human and engineered system shock and impact protection devices.