A Review of Recent Progress in the Modeling Methods of Electromechanical and Mechanical‐Stimuli‐Responsive Polymer Metastructures

ABSTRACT

We summarize the state of simulation and modeling methods of the electromechanical and mechanical properties of polymer metastructures. This review demonstrates that the field is maturing rapidly, driven by advances in coupled finite element (FE) methods, topology optimization (TO), and data‐driven surrogate modeling. The most impactful near‐term developments are likely to arise from the tighter integration of nonlinear electromechanical constitutive models with structure‐scale metastructure simulations, and from the development of validated frameworks for graded and nonperiodic polymer metastructure designs. On the mechanical side, numerical simulation and modeling are essential for understanding, predicting, and optimizing the mechanical response of these structures before expensive fabrication.