Engineers at MIT have unveiled a new computational framework for designing and fabricating a revolutionary class of 3D-printed materials – soft, deformable metamaterials woven from intertwined fibers. Published January 26th in Nature Communications, this breakthrough moves beyond traditionally stiff metamaterials, opening doors to applications in areas like soft robotics and wearable technology. The framework allows for programmable deformation and predicts how these materials will stretch and fail, offering unprecedented control over their properties. “Soft materials are required for emerging engineering challenges in areas such as soft robotics, biomedical devices, or even for wearable devices and functional textiles,” explains Carlos Portela, Robert N. Noyce Career Development Professor and associate professor of mechanical engineering. This work includes open-source code enabling users to design and 3D print custom metamaterials with tailored behaviors.
3D Woven Metamaterials Enable Tailored Soft Material Properties
A new computational design framework is unlocking unprecedented control over soft materials, moving beyond traditional limitations in areas like robotics and wearable technology. Researchers at the MIT Department of Mechanical Engineering have developed a method for creating 3D woven metamaterials – structures whose properties stem from their internal architecture rather than their composition – offering programmable deformation and predictable failure modes. These aren’t simply stronger or stiffer materials, but ones with properties meticulously tailored for specific applications. The fundamental building blocks are woven unit cells, where parameters like fiber radius and pitch are carefully controlled.
The innovation addresses a longstanding challenge in metamaterial design: achieving both complexity and predictability in soft, compliant structures. The team’s algorithm generates a graph representation of the metamaterial, dictating fiber placement and connection.
This allows for spatially varying geometries, enabling materials that are softer in some areas and stiffer in others, or even change shape as they stretch. “Because this framework allows these metamaterials to be tailored to be softer in one place and stiffer in another, or to change shape as they stretch, they can exhibit an exceptional range of behaviors that would be hard to design using conventional soft materials,” says Molly Carton, lead author of the study, now an assistant research professor in mechanical engineering at the University of Maryland.
The framework isn’t just a design tool; it also predicts how these materials will behave under stress. Simulations capture complex phenomena like fiber self-contact and entanglement, allowing researchers to anticipate and even engineer failure patterns. “The most exciting part was being able to tailor failure in these materials and design arbitrary combinations,” Portela notes.
The team validated these predictions by fabricating and testing microscale samples, demonstrating the framework’s accuracy. “Until now, these complex 3D lattices have been designed manually, painstakingly, which limits the number of designs that anyone has tested,” Carton adds. “We’ve been able to describe how these woven lattices work and use that to create a design tool for arbitrary woven lattices.”
Nature Communications Framework Generates Complex Metamaterial Designs
A new computational framework is poised to revolutionize the creation of soft, adaptable materials, moving beyond traditional metamaterial limitations focused on strength and rigidity. This innovation promises a leap forward in areas like soft robotics, biomedical implants, and advanced textiles. The framework addresses a key hurdle in metamaterial engineering: achieving complex designs efficiently. “Normal knitting or weaving have been constrained by the hardware for hundreds of years — there’s only a few patterns that you can make clothes out of, for example — but that changes if hardware is no longer a limitation,” explains Carlos Portela, the Robert N.
This level of design freedom enables the creation of materials tailored to specific needs, varying from soft to stiff in different areas, or even changing shape under stress. The framework doesn’t just design the structure, it also simulates its behavior, accurately predicting how fibers will self-contact, entangle, and ultimately fail under strain—allowing researchers to engineer specific failure modes.
“Soft materials are required for emerging engineering challenges in areas such as soft robotics, biomedical devices, or even for wearable devices and functional textiles,”
Carlos Portela, the Robert N. Noyce Career Development Professor and associate professor of mechanical engineering
The system moves beyond traditional materials science by focusing on microstructure, allowing properties to be dictated by internal design rather than chemical composition. This predictive power extends to anticipating tearing patterns, enabling designers to proactively mitigate failure points. The researchers successfully validated their simulations by fabricating and testing these spatially varying geometries at the microscale, proving the accuracy of the predictive model.
