Tunable mechanical response of layered auxetic plates

Smart materials and structures represent the latest frontier in modern mechanics: the capa-bility to design structures, whose response can be triggered by external stimuli, allows us to design self-tunable structures to be used in advanced applications. In the present paper we focus on the smart mechanical response of a sandwich-like plate having an auxetic material (i.e. material with negative Poisson’s ratio) layer. It is demonstrated that such a ply can reduce its nonlinear response even under large displacements bending, providing the capability to tune its overall behavior. Further the delamination problem is also reduced by using such an auxetic layer.