Design Considerations for Materials with Negative Poisson’s Ratios

This article presents a study of the implications of negative Poisson’s ratios in the design of components subjected to stress. When the Poisson’s ratio becomes negative, stress concentration factors are reduced in some situations and unchanged or increased in others. Stress decay according to Saint Venant’s principle can occur more or less rapidly as the Poisson’s ratio decreases. Several design examples are presented, including a core for a curved sandwich panel and a flexible impact buffer.