Reusable Energy‐Absorbing Architected Materials Harnessing Snapping‐Back Buckling of Wide Hyperelastic Columns

Abstract A new class of reusable energy‐absorbing architected material is developed by harnessing the snapping‐back buckling of wide hyperelastic columns. Subjected to an axial compression, a wide hyperelastic column can discontinuously buckle, snapping from one stable equilibrium state to another, leading to energy dissipation, while upon unloading, it can completely recover its undeformed state. Making use of this property, an energy‐absorbing architected material is designed by stacking layers of wide hyperelastic columns, and it is fabricated by multi‐material 3D printing and sacrificial molding. Characterized by quasi‐static and drop tests, the material shows the capability of energy dissipation and impact force mitigation in a reusable, self‐recoverable, and rate‐independent manner. A theory is established to predict the energy‐absorbing performance of the material and the influence of the column geometry and layer number. Wide tunability of the peak force, energy dissipation, and stability of the material is further demonstrated. This work provides new design strategies for developing reusable energy‐absorbing materials and opens new opportunities for improving their energy dissipation capacities.