Recently growing attention has been paid to the particular class of metamaterials
which has been called pantographic. Pantographic metamaterials have the following
peculiar features: (i) their continuum model, at the macroscale, has to include a term
of the deformation energy depending on the second gradient of placement, (ii) they
can show an elastic behavior in large deformation regimes, and (iii) they
are resilient and tough during rupture phenomena (dell’Isola et al. 2015).
In order to predict pantographic metamaterials’ mechanical behavior, it is
possible to introduce a three-dimensional continuum micromodel, in which
their internal geometrical microstructure is described in detail. However, the
computational costs of this choice are presently prohibitive. In this paper,
we introduce a reduced order model for pantographic sheets — which are
an example of an elastic surface — whose kinematics include, for each of
the two constituting families of fibers fully independent three-dimensional
(i) placement and (ii) rotation fields. In this way it is possible to include, also
in the reduced order model, (i) the initial and the actual offset between
the fibers and (ii) the deformation energy of the interconnecting pivots.
By postulating a simplified expression for the deformation energy we prove
that also a reduced order model can describe some experimental observed
buckling and postbuckling phenomena. The promising results which we present
here motivate the quest of more general expressions for deformation energy
capable of capturing the fully nonlinear behavior exhibited by pantographic
sheets.