A novel random chiral metamaterial with multi-step plateau: Vorochiral metamaterial

Wang, Hao, Kadir, Mohammed Rafiq Abdul, Zhu, Hanxing ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3209-6831 and Lyu, Yongtao 2026. A novel random chiral metamaterial with multi-step plateau: Vorochiral metamaterial. International Journal of Mechanical Sciences 315 , 111438. 10.1016/j.ijmecsci.2026.111438

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Abstract

Chiral metamaterials are a class of auxetic mechanical metamaterials, which are widely employed for their remarkable auxetic behavior. However, they typically exhibit lower stiffness and energy absorption compared to other auxetic metamaterials at the same relative density. Therefore, enhancing the mechanical properties of chiral metamaterials through appropriate distribution of materials and geometric reconfigurations rather than simply adding more materials remains a significant challenge. In this study, a novel random structure called Vorochiral metamaterial was proposed by integrating Voronoi tessellation with conventional chiral metamaterials, effectively chiralizing the Voronoi structure. The mechanical properties of Vorochiral metamaterials, including Poisson’s ratio, initial stiffness, energy absorption capacity, and deformation behaviors, were investigated through experimental testing and finite element (FE) analyses. The experimentally validated FE models were further used to investigate the mechanical properties of Vorochiral metamaterials with varying irregularity degrees and parametric analyses on the influence of nodal circle radius and wall thickness were conducted. The Vorochiral metamaterials demonstrated higher initial stiffness than conventional chiral metamaterials while maintaining a negative Poisson’s ratio over a wide range of strains. Additionally, they exhibited superior energy absorption capacities due to multi-step plateaus in stress-strain curves. The results also showed that increasing the nodal circle radius decreased both initial stiffness and energy absorption capacity, whereas increasing the wall thickness enhanced both properties. These finding suggest that geometric reconfigurations can effectively enhance the mechanical properties of chiral metamaterials. This study successfully breaks the traditional trade-off between high stiffness and large deformability, demonstrating a significant improvement in mechanical performance compared to conventional chiral metamaterials.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Schools > Engineering
Publisher:	Elsevier
ISSN:	0020-7403
Date of Acceptance:	21 February 2026
Last Modified:	25 Feb 2026 12:00
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/185299

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