Geometrically frustrated, mechanical metamaterial membranes: Large-scale stress accumulation and size-selective assembly

Abstract

We study the effect of geometric frustration on dilational mechanical metamaterial membranes. While shape frustrated elastic plates can only accommodate non-zero Gaussian curvature up to size scales that ultimately vanish with their elastic thickness, we show that frustrated {\it metamembranes} accumulate hyperbolic curvatures up to mesoscopic length scales that are ultimately independent of the size of their microscopic constituents. A continuum elastic theory and discrete numerical model describe the size-dependent shape and internal stresses of axisymmetric, trumpet-like frustrated metamembranes, revealing a non-trivial crossover to a much weaker power-law growth in elastic strain energy with size than in frustrated elastic membranes. We study a consequence of this for the self-limiting assembly thermodynamics of frustrated trumpets, showing a several-fold increase the size range of self-limitation of metamembranes relative to elastic membranes.