See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/345177113

Auxetic Materials

Chapter · October 2020

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-54081-4_6

CITATIONS READS

2 1,029

1 author:

Ofir Albag
Politecnico di Milano
3 PUBLICATIONS 13 CITATIONS

SEE PROFILE

All content following this page was uploaded by Ofir Albag on 31 January 2021.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

Chapter 6
Auxetic Materials

Ofir Elazar Albag

Abstract Auxetic materials are characterized by the uncommon capacity of

extending sideways when pulled longitudinally, while contracting laterally under
compressive action. This particular property enables auxetic materials and metama-
terials to have special capabilities such as variable permeability, energy absorption,
resistance to fracture, the ability to adapt to a bending force and resistance to failure
due to shear load. Thanks to these features, auxetic materials have found promising
applications in many performative environments, including crash protection, body
armor, fasteners, medical devices, sports equipment and aerospace technologies. The
special characteristics of auxetic materials have opened new leads for exploration in
many design fields including fashion design, product design and architecture, creating
new aesthetic languages and functional standards. The chapter gives an overview of
how the auxetic principle works, its current applications in various design disciplines
and a vision of what could come next in future scenarios regarding auxetics.

Keywords Auxetic materials · Negative Poisson’s ratio · Metamaterials ·

Applications · Patterns · Material science

6.1 Introduction to Auxetics

6.1.1 What Are Auxetics

The term auxetics was first used in 1991 by Ken Evans to label materials previously
referred to as dilational and originated from the Greek word for “tending to increase”
(Carneiro et al. 2013). Auxetic materials are materials with unique properties: while
common materials stretch thinner in the perpendicular direction to an applied tension
force, auxetic materials, on the other hand, expand or shrink equally in all directions

O. E. Albag (B)
Material Balance Research Group, Architecture, Built Environment and Construction
Engineering—ABC Department, Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy
e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 65

I. Paoletti and M. Nastri (eds.), Material Balance,
PoliMI SpringerBriefs,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54081-4_6
66 O. E. Albag

when stretched or compressed, respectively. This behavior is also called the Poisson
effect and is measured by Poisson’s ratio, which is the negative of the ratio between
transversal and longitudinal strain. In fact, most materials shrink transversally when
pulled longitudinally, which results in a negative strain ratio, but in turn produces a
positive Poisson’s ratio. Auxetic materials do the opposite and they are often referred
to as materials with a negative Poisson’s ratio. This could come as a result of the
micro-structure of the material at an atomic level, as well as from a meso- or macro-
scale geometric arrangement of material, which is why there are some typical patterns
that are commonly associated to auxetics (Strek et al. 2018).

6.1.2 Brief History of Auxetics

The discovery of auxetics dates back to the beginning of the twentieth century and is
credited to German physicist Woldemar Voigt, who examined iron pyrite minerals and
observed how the crystals grew thicker laterally when under longitudinal tension.
However, Voigt could not come up with an explanation to this behavior and the
phenomenon was disregarded for decades. The topic was picked up only in the ‘70s,
when more interest started to spread among researchers and many materials, such as
ferromagnetic films (Popereka and Balagurov 1970) and fcc crystals (Milstein and
Huang 1979), were confirmed to have a negative Poisson’s ratio.
The biggest breakthroughs came in the late ‘80s, starting from the emergence of
mechanical and thermodynamic models for the analysis of deformation in auxetic
cellular grids (Gibson and Ashby 1988), to the discovery of materials with extreme
Poisson’s ratios, reaching up to −12 (Caddock and Evans 1989). But perhaps the
biggest step forward was moving on from naturally-occurring auxetic rocks and
minerals, to the first artificial auxetic materials. Roderic Lakes produced the first
foam with a negative Poisson’s ratio by manipulating the configuration of a regular
foam with a sequence of compression, moulding and heating actions, a process that
altered the arrangement of its cell structures into a reentrant disposition (Lakes 1987).
This proved that the true potential of auxetic behavior lies in the ability of ingraining
it in existing materials by means of strategic geometric design, which made way to
an array of innovative applications.

6.2 Applied Auxetics

6.2.1 Applications Across Disciplines

Ever since the rise of interest in auxetics 30 years ago, the principle has found many
types and fields of application, including the army, aerospace, maritime, biomedical,
sportswear and apparel sectors. In aerospace, the high thermal filtering capacity of
6 Auxetic Materials 67

auxetic materials has been used to provide high-performing insulation. The defense
sector is currently investing in having lighter protective gear that uses the auxetic
property of global compacting under compression to produce materials with stronger
resistance against ballistic impact, regardless of lower mass (Liu 2006). In biomedical
applications, auxetic materials are used in making prostheses that provide higher
comfort and better recovery for patients, for example in artificial intervertebral disks,
cushion pads for knee prosthetics or tools for repairing cardiac valves (Scarpa 2008).
Furniture design is another promising field for the application of auxetic materials.
For example, auxetic surfaces that can react to forces by local expansion enable the
design of chairs that precisely adapt to the posture, body shape and weight of the
user. At a larger scale, auxetic materials can be used to create flat-packed complex
structures that can be easily deployed on-site. This is possible thanks to auxetic
materials’ capability to be elastically deformed into synclastic surfaces starting from
a flat format (Papadopoulou et al. 2017).
Auxetic fibers are also being used in construction to produce better reinforced
composites, since their non-shrinking behavior when subjected to tension could
contribute to reducing cracks. On the other hand, the fashion industry is exploiting
the ability of auxetics to easily adapt into desired geometries by closely conforming
to complex shapes. This adaptability could potentially enable a manufacturer to
produce one-size-fits-all shoes or garments, or even multi-age children apparel, and
thus promote great savings in both costs of production as well as resulting waste,
while maintaining the highest standards of comfort for the user. That is why designers
in many fields are becoming increasingly acquainted with various auxetic patterns
and using their potential in compelling designs.

6.2.2 Auxetics in Fashion

The promising characteristics of materials with negative Poisson’s ratio allowed for
the investigation of new paradigms in an array of fields concerned with improved
performance and comfort, expanding their aesthetic and functional offer. The apparel
industry already seemed to recognize the advantage auxetic patterns give in enhancing
a usual sheet of material into an adaptive one that closely fits the wearer’s body and
provides unprecedented comfort. Under Armour uses an auxetic layer on the upper
part of the shoe to provide extra breathability (Toronjo 2014), whereas Nike has
applied the principle of auxetics to its soles, which provide for increased flexibility,
comfort and grip, while reducing the impact of the foot hitting the ground (Cross
2016). That same adaptability could also allow producers to create one-size pieces
of clothing which adapt to all possible measures and thus eliminate the need for
expensive and wasteful different sizes. This unique property is fully exploited in
Petit Pli’s auxetic children’s apparel, which developed a sustainable alternative for
children’s fast-changing clothing using garments that “grow” by the application of a
zigzag auxetic folding pattern (Yasin 2018). In this way, they could offer functional
children’s fashion that lasts for longer and results in less waste (Fig. 6.1).
68 O. E. Albag

Fig. 6.1 Auxetic materials used by Petit Pli to produce adaptive clothing for kids: the trousers can
almost double in size due to the auxetic principle (courtesy of Petit Pli, photo credits: Ryan Mario
Yasin, Mollie Rose)

Fashion designer Danit Peleg, who is credited as the first person to print her entire
collection on home 3D printers (Grain 2016), uses auxetic patterns in her garments
not only due to their ability to adapt to all bodies, but also to create more fabric-like
behavior out of the commonly rigid outcomes of FDM printing. Her auxetic 3D-
printed fabrics have a natural way of draping that is similar to the shape that a knitted
textile would follow, due to their ability to adapt to complex doubly-curved surfaces.
In addition, the auxetic macro-patterns provide an extra bouncing quality to Peleg’s
clothing, which is why they were used in several occasions involving dancing perfor-
mances. In this case, auxetics provide an experience that was previously unimaginable
(Fig. 6.2).

6.2.3 Auxetics in Architecture

The auxetic-specific ability to follow complex synclastic and anticlastic surfaces

has been explored also in architecture, an industry in which the manufacturing of
doubly curved elements has struggled to keep up with the architects’ novel designs,
that have come due to the revolution in advanced digital 3D modelling. The current
widespread techniques of producing doubly curved panels often involve at least one
step of moulding, which results in very high manufacturing costs and slow rates of
production.
Architects at ZHA challenged the status-quo of the construction industry in this
aspect in their Volu dining pavilion. They applied an auxetic cutting pattern to 2 mm
6 Auxetic Materials 69

Fig. 6.2 A skirt by Danit Peleg that uses the stretchiness and bounciness of auxetic materials
(courtesy of Danit Peleg, photo credits: Daria Ratiner)

steel plates in order to kerf bend them into doubly-curved panels that closely followed
the flowy design of the pavilion (Louth et al. 2017). Kerfing is a method of providing
curvature in a flat rigid material by cutting through it or by making incisions, but
it’s usually limited to unidirectional flexibility and thus developable surfaces. By
using an auxetic pattern, architects at ZHA were able to take kurfing one step further
(Fig. 6.3).

Fig. 6.3 Auxetic pattern used by ZHA to cut custom doubly curved pieces for the Volu pavilion
(courtesy of Zaha Hadid Architects)
70 O. E. Albag

Another direction architecture is currently moving towards is the exploration of

adaptive spaces, so the interior quality of auxetic patterns is being used to create
functionally graded barriers that provide adapted visual and acoustic comfort. In this
way, auxetics are making their way into the list of advanced programmable mate-
rials. In addition to interior-exclusive uses, auxetics can be also applied in systems
regulating exterior to interior filtering, such as the case of shading systems using
bilayer heat-activated polymers with designed intertwining patterns (Papadopoulou
et al. 2017). However, these climate regulation systems remain in their first steps
towards a widely applied solution.

6.3 The Future of Auxetics/Promising Scenarios

for Auxetics

6.3.1 Construction of Doubly Curved Surfaces

As shown in the case of the Volu pavilion by Zaha Hadid Architects, one of the
emerging applications of auxetics is the fabrication of doubly curved surfaces. The
issue of manufacturing 3D objects with positive Gaussian curves has increasingly
been dealt with in recent years, as computational tools provide the possibility of
designing ever more complex and sophisticated geometries. Despite recent efforts
in making doubly curved panels more accessible, the common prominent practice in
architecture still remains approximating most of the shapes to developable surfaces
or, in other words, curved surfaces that can be produced out of bending a flat, inex-
tensible sheet of material. The problem with this approach is that it often requires
a thorough and careful reconstruction of the design which often diverges too much
from the original and requires more paneling, hence reducing the continuity of the
surface’s appearance.
A promising alternative to tackle this problem is proposed by a recent paper that
goes beyond the developable approach and rationalizes surfaces by using auxetic
principles. This method harnesses the enhanced plastic behavior created by the appli-
cation of auxetic cut patterns into an inherently inextensible material (such as metal
sheets) to cheaply and easily approximate a wide array of complex, doubly curved
objects. Elements formed through this cutting process exhibit small local rotations
that allow the material to gain extreme stretching properties and consequently provide
a result that closely wraps the target surface (Konaković et al. 2016). By employing
constraints and optimization criteria, the researchers propose a computational work-
flow to the approximation of complex surfaces, which would not be possible using
traditional auxetic design methodologies. However, there are a few limits to this
method, namely the extent of the gaussian curvature it can approximate (for example
it will never be able to create a whole sphere from a single sheet) and the complicated
6 Auxetic Materials 71

geometric calculations that have to take place in order to determine the right auxetic
cut pattern and its sizing across the material. Nevertheless, the method could improve
current best practices by considerably reducing the paneling of complex surfaces in
construction.

6.3.2 Shape-Shifting Architecture

Shape-shifting architecture takes adaptive architecture one step further, from static
functionally graded architectural elements, to dynamic architectural skins and even
moving skeletons, that adapt to the user’s needs by means of literal encapsulation or
protrusion. These scenarios of futuristic architecture often target changing levels of
privacy or isolation and aim to give a seamless sensation in the changes happening in
one’s work life at the office or leisure time at home. A group of students at Hyperbody
proposed an auxetic wall that could shift between several configurations desired by
inhabitants of student dorms. The wall uses a differentiated auxetic pattern to guide
the shape of the wall, which controls the levels of privacy around an individual or a
group of people (Fig. 6.4). The pattern made it possible to have functional furniture
embedded in the wall, which pops out due to the material’s geometric morphology
(Kolo et al. 2017).

Fig. 6.4 Parametrically designed auxetic pattern used for a shape-shifting wall at Hyperbody, in
which a bench is designed to flush with the wall in certain configurations but pop out in others
(courtesy of Elpiza Kolo)
72 O. E. Albag

Fig. 6.5 In the prototype designed by Mirante the alternation between auxetic and hexagonal
patterns makes the grid bend in non-uniform ways to achieve more curvature in auxetic areas
(courtesy of Lorenzo Mirante)

Shape-shifting architecture also has the potential to facilitate construction

processes and make the transportation of curved prefabricated elements to the
building site easier, by starting out from flat sheets. A project by Mirante uses
auxetic patterns to optimize bending-active structures that can be activated on site
by compression forces and reach complex shapes starting from completely flat grids
(Fig. 6.5). Differently from typical bending-active grids, that start from flat spatial
arrangements to reach uniformly curved vaults or domes, this solution uses auxetics
to envision surfaces with variable curvatures and proposes a computational work-
flow for their design (Mirante 2015). Another promising construction technique is
the practice of pre-buckling 3D lattices to turn them into auxetic ones, thus achieving
stiffer and more resistant structures, a principle that has recently been explored by
material scientists. Applying loads to 3D auxetic lattices in the direction in which
they possess more rigidity was proven to optimize their crashworthiness (Albertini
et al. 2019).

6.3.3 Smart Auxetics

Recent developments in material science have infiltrated and pushed the field even
further by producing active auxetic structures, made of smart materials that respond
to specific environmental stimuli such as heat, moisture or air pressure. Active auxetic
materials offer even greater adaptability and functionality as they can self-transform
and adapt to environmental conditions and user needs. For example, temperature-
active clothing can be made by using bilayer polymers composites with different
coefficients of thermal expansion, properties emerging from their auxetic nature
(Papadopoulou et al. 2017). The construction sector can also benefit from the appli-
cation of auxetics in bilayer materials, since they hold the potential of adjusting the
6 Auxetic Materials 73

stiffness of bent plates without changing their geometry. Such plates can exhibit
a linear behavior even in cases of extreme displacements, which makes otherwise
unaltered elements much safer when approaching failure (Brighenti 2014).
Using active auxetic materials increases the potential range of application by
replacing the need for external, mechanical stimuli with an intrinsic one that drives
the auxetic behavior on the material level. We can now imagine applications of self-
adapting auxetic materials in our every-day environment: from compressed-state
shipping of disaster relief shelters that transform by exposure to specific environ-
mental conditions, to apparel and other products that simply provide custom fit as
well as adaptive breathability, waterproofing and self-optimization.

6.4 Conclusion

The vast possibilities offered by the combination of smart materials and auxetic
geometries blends the boundaries between the disciplines of design and material
science, providing new visions for the design of highly adaptive, performance-driven
products that carry the promise of improved well-being with a lower environmental
cost. When it comes to architecture, whether this technology will be used to improve
construction processes or a building’s structural stiffness, auxetic materials seem to
hold the potential to transform our built environment for the better and for the safer.

References

Albertini F, Dirrenberger J, Molotnikov A, Sollogoub C (2019) Computational investigation of the

effective mechanical behavior for 3D pre-buckled auxetic lattices. J Appl Mech 86(11):111003
Brighenti R (2014) Smart behaviour of layered plates through the use of auxetic materials. Thin-
Walled Struct 84:432–442. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tws.2014.07.017
Caddock BD, Evans KE (1989) Microporous materials with negative Poisson’s ratios. I. Microstruc-
ture and mechanical properties. J Phys D Appl Phys 22:1877–1882
Carneiro VH, Meireles J, Puga H (2013) Auxetic materials—a review. Mater Sci Poland 31:561–571
Cross TM (2016) Footwear with flexible auxetic sole structure. NIKE, Inc. US Patent 20160157557.
https://patents.google.com/patent/US9681703B2/en. Accessed 12 Sept 2019
Gibson LJ, Ashby MF (1988) Cellular solids: structure & properties. Pergamon Press, Oxford
Grain E (2016) 3D printing fashion with recycled polyester: a sustainable journey. In: IFFTI—BIFT
2016 international conference proceedings. Beijing, China
Kolo E, Zanetti E, Zhang S, Rosenboom H (2017) Wall system, meso scale. http://rbse.hyperbody.
nl/index.php/Msc1G4:Student1. Accessed 14 Sept 2019
Konaković M, Crane K, Deng B, Bouaziz S, Piker D, Pauly M (2016) Beyond developable:
computational design and fabrication with auxetic materials. ACM Trans Graph 35:1–11
Lakes R (1987) Foam structures with a negative poisson’s ratio. Science 235:1038–1040
Liu Q (2006) Literature review: materials with negative poisson’s ratios and potential applications
to aerospace and defence. In: apps.dtic.mil. https://apps.dtic.mil/docs/citations/ADA460791.
Accessed 15 Sept 2019
 74 O. E. Albag

Louth H, Reeves D, Bhooshan S, Schumacher P, Koren B (2017) A prefabricated dining pavilion.

Fabricate 2017:58–67
Milstein F, Huang K (1979) Existence of a negative Poisson ratio in fcc crystals. Phys Rev B
19:2030–2033
Mirante L (2015) Auxetic structures: towards bending-active architectural applications. Master’s
Thesis. Politecnico di Milano
Papadopoulou A, Laucks J, Tibbits S (2017) Auxetic materials in design and architecture. Nat Rev
Mater 2(12):1–3
Popereka MYA, Balagurov VG (1970) Ferromagnetic films having a negative Poisson ratio. Sov
Phys Solid State 11:2938–2943
Scarpa F (2008) Auxetic materials for bioprostheses [In the spotlight]. IEEE Signal Process Mag
25:126–128
Strek T, Michalski J, Jopek H (2018) Computational analysis of the mechanical impedance of the
sandwich beam with auxetic metal foam core. Phys Status Solidi (b) 256:1800423
Toronjo A (2014) Articles of apparel including auxetic materials. US Patent 20140101816 A1
Yasin RM (2018) Petit pli: clothes that grow. Utopian Stud 28:576

View publication stats