As part of the research colloquium for students, doctoral and habiliation candidates, we cordially invite you to join us on Tuesday, August 19, 2025, at 4.30 pm in room 3516 (Mönchebergstr. 7). We are pleased to announce the lecture by Prof. Dr.-Ing. Tim Ricken, Faculty of Aerospace Engineering and Geodesy, University of Stuttgart with the title

“The Power of Auxetics: How can structural effects contribute to the design of metamaterials?”

Abstract

Auxetic structures form a distinct subgroup of metamaterials and possess unique characteristics, making them of great interest for aerospace engineering. Noteworthy properties such as the negative Poisson ratios, high resistance to penetration, high energy dissipation as well as energy absorption capabilities, depend mainly on the geometry of the underlaying auxetic unit cell.

Within this talk the transition from investigating a single or patches of a few unit cells to practice relevant structures is highlighted. On the unit-cell level influences of the geometry as well as the position of a unit cell on Poisson ration and energy absorption are studied both, experimentally and numerically. Applying these unit cells in macroscopic components, confirms the importance of the unit cell geometry and highlights the interaction between the scales. An example for this kind of interaction is a more even stress distribution due to the interplay of the auxetic effect of the unit cells and the e. g. a macroscopic encasing. In consequence the stored elastic energy increased compared to non-auxetic unit cells. In order to exploit the full potential of mesostructured components a hierarchic optimization of spatial distribution, orientation and shape of the unit cells is required. This has been applied to optimize bending dominated structures under static and dynamic loads.

Auxetic metamaterials offer a high potential in application but come with drawbacks due to the resolution of the mesostructure alongside with the optimization of large-scale structures. In order to reduce the resulting computational costs, efficient solution algorithms