Recent advances in lithography technology and the spread of 3D printers allow us a facile fabrication of special materials with complicated microstructures. The materials are called "designed materials" or "architectured materials" and provide new opportunities for material development. These materials, which owing to their rationally designed architectures exhibit unusual properties at the micro- and nano-scales, are being widely exploited in the development of modern materials with customized and improved performance. Meta-materials are found to possess superior and unusual properties as regards static modulus (axial stress divided by axial strain), density, energy absorption, smart functionality, and negative Poisson's ratio (NPR). However, in spite of recent developments, it has only been feasible to fabricate a few such meta-materials and to implement them in practical applications. Against such a backdrop, a broad review of the wide range of cellular auxetic structures for mechanical metamaterials available at our disposal and their potential application areas is important. Classified according to their geometrical configuration, this paper provides a review of cellular auxetic structures. The structures are presented with a view to tap into their potential abilities and leverage multidimensional fabrication advances to facilitate their application in industry. In this review, there is a special emphasis on state-of-the-art applications of these structures in important domains such as sensors and actuators, the medical industry, and defense while touching upon ways to accelerate the material development process.
Keywords: auxetic structure; cellular structure; metamaterial; negative Poisson’s ratio.