Smart behaviour of layered plates through the use of auxetic materials

The development of smart structures, aimed at optimizing the response of engineering systems, is a modern and very promising field. Such advanced structural element can be obtained, in some cases, by using the so-called auxetic materials, i.e. materials exhibiting negative Poisson’s ratio. In the present paper a brief introduction on auxetic materials and on their use and potentiality is presented. In particular their application to obtain smart layered plates is discussed; it is shown as these materials allow, in certain conditions, to get a desired stiffness and a nearly linear behaviour (even under large displacement conditions) of bended plates, without changing the plate’s geometry and materials. Such potentialities are presented and discussed based on numerical analyses, and a mechanical interpretation of the observed structural behaviour is proposed.