A novel windmill-shaped auxetic structure with energy absorption enhancement

•The proposed design exhibits better energy absorption characteristics.•Reinforcing ligaments ensure uniform deformation and improved stability.•The proposed design maintains a constant Poisson's ratio under relatively large deformation.•The theoretical derivation is simple and applicable to other auxetic structures. The traditional anti-tetra-missing rib structure often suffers from uneven stress deformation and poor energy absorption, which limits its engineering applications. To address these limitations, this paper proposed a novel windmill-shaped auxetic structure by incorporating reinforcing ligaments into the traditional anti-tetra-missing rib structure. The incorporation of these reinforcing ligaments ensures that both the outer and inner ligaments of the windmill-shaped auxetic structure are adequately supported, leading to more uniform structural deformation and enhanced energy absorption capabilities. Further modifications, such as reducing the length of the outer and inner ligaments and increasing their thickness within a reasonable range, significantly enhance the energy absorption capacity. These findings provide a theoretical basis for the design and practical application of auxetic metamaterials. [Display omitted]