Optimal Design of Bistable Meta-Panels for Energy Dissipation in Buildings Under Seismic Excitation

Metamaterials, which are engineered materials exhibiting mechanical properties superior to the ones existing in nature, have gathered significant attention in the last years. Of particular interest are bistable mechanical metamaterials with negative stiffness, which have proven remarkable energy absorption properties. This encouraged their implementation with the purpose of absorbing and dissipating part of the seismic energy impacting existing buildings. An energy dissipating meta-panel (EDMP) can be outlined combining the fundamental concepts of passive vibration control system, as a tuned mass damper (TMD), and bistable metamaterials. The unit cell of the EDMP is comprised of a meta-layer linked to a vibrating mass. The meta-layer, designed as a cosine-shape beam (CSB), should have properly calibrated geometric properties to achieve bistable behaviour. Despite a proper calibration of the unit cell, the dissipation performance may be affected by the overall number of cells used to form the meta-panel. This paper investigates the impact of varying the number of cells per layer. This is conducted by numerical simulations on a calibrated EDMP. The aim is to understand how different configurations affect the overall performance of the meta-panel to gain fundamental insights necessary for designing the optimal solution tailored to each application.