Damage-programmable design of metamaterials achieving crack-resisting mechanisms seen in nature

The fracture behaviour of artificial metamaterials often leads to catastrophic failures with limited resistance to crack propagation. In contrast, natural materials such as bones and ceramics possess microstructures that give rise to spatially controllable crack path and toughened material resistance to crack advances. This study presents an approach that is inspired by nature’s strengthening mechanisms to develop a systematic design method enabling damage-programmable metamaterials with engineerable microfibers in the cells that can spatially program the micro-scale crack behaviour. Machine learning is applied to provide an effective design engine that accelerate the generation of damage-programmable cells that offer advanced toughening functionality such as crack bowing, crack deflection, and shielding seen in natural materials; and are optimised for a given programming of crack path. This paper shows that such toughening features effectively enable crack-resisting mechanisms on the basis of the crack tip interactions, crack shielding, crack bridging and synergistic combinations of these mechanisms, increasing up to 1,235% absorbed fracture energy in comparison to conventional metamaterials. The proposed approach can have broad implications in the design of damage-tolerant materials, and lightweight engineering systems where significant fracture resistances or highly programmable damages for high performances are sought after. © The Author(s) 2024.