Beyond von Mises truss models: Emergent bistability in mechanical metamaterials

Md Nahid Hasan; Taylor E. Greenwood; Sharat Paul; Bolei Deng; Qihan Liu; Yong Lin Kong; Pai Wang

doi:10.1103/yrnh-tbd8

Beyond von Mises truss models: Emergent bistability in mechanical metamaterials

Md Nahid Hasan ^1,2, Taylor E. Greenwood ^1,3, Sharat Paul ¹, Bolei Deng ⁴, Qihan Liu ⁵, Yong Lin Kong ^1,6,7,*, and Pai Wang ^1,†

¹Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah 84112, USA
²Department of Mechanical Engineering, Montana Technological University, Butte, Montana 59701, USA
³Department of Mechanical Engineering, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802, USA
⁴Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia 30332, USA
⁵Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15213, USA
⁶Department of Mechanical Engineering, Rice University, Houston, Texas 77005, USA
⁷Rice Advanced Materials Institute, Rice University, Houston, Texas 77005, USA

^*Contact author: kong@rice.edu
^†Contact author: pai.wang@utah.edu

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Phys. Rev. Applied 25, 014029 – Published 13 January, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/yrnh-tbd8

Abstract

We observe and analyze the phenomenon of bistability emergent from cooperative stiffening in hyperelastic metamaterials. Using experimental and numerical results of identical geometric designs, we show evidence that a single unit is monostable while combining two units can result in bistability. Our study demonstrates that the von Mises truss model cannot describe such emergent behavior. Hence, we construct a simple analytical model to explain this phenomenon.

Physical Review Applied

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Beyond von Mises truss models: Emergent bistability in mechanical metamaterials

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