Digital flexural materials

Abstract

Digital flexural materials are discrete parts that can be assembled into a lattice structure to produce functionally useful assemblies. An automated process for constructing a structure from digital flexural materials includes assembling a set of discrete units into the structure by reversibly connecting a majority of the set of discrete units to each other, each of the units being reversibly connected or connectable to at least two other units in the set according to a lattice geometry, and then assembling the reversibly connected discrete units into the structure according to the lattice geometry, wherein the structure has the property that a reversible deformation of at least part of the structure occurs in response to loading of the structure. The units in the set of discrete units may be of at least two types or may together comprise a stretch-bend coupled material when assembled according to the lattice geometry.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.