Architectured materials, broadly termed as “metamaterials”, define their mechanical properties, responses, and activities through the interaction between their underlying materials and the microstructural geometry. Constructing those architectures with functional materials has readily proved as a way to make their mechanical behavior, usually uncommon in nature, accessible to other physical quantities, i.e. thermal, optical, chemical, electrical, or magnetic fields. These forms of material systems are able to sense, actuate, compute, or communicate, giving rise to a range of controllability, autonomy, intelligence, or learning abilities over their mechanics.
On one hand, architectured functional materials dramatically fueled applications in traditional and emerging areas, such as mechanical, aerospace, and biological engineering, thanks to their capabilities in programmable shape-morphing, tailoring material stiffness and toughness, and controlling low-frequency waves/vibrations among others. On the other hand, new architecture designs refreshed our understandings about the underpinning concepts in physics and mathematics related to their properties and behavior, i.e. the role of symmetry and topology.
Current advances in materials science and engineering as well as manufacturing provide architectured functional materials unparalleled opportunities. We can exploit new forms of material systems by developing distinct ways to correlate mechanics with different physical domains using the likes of chemo-mechanical, electromechanical, and opto-mechanical couplings. We can also improve the performance of current designs through innovations in materials and fabrications, such as shortening the material response time, enlarging the ranges of material parameters and boosting the efficiency in manufacturing.
Furthermore, progress in mechanics or even in physics and mathematics motivated a range of metamaterial structural designs that exhibit unconventional functions, i.e. negative Poisson’s ratio, perfect elastic cloaking, and one-way wave propagation. Some of those functions, either studied before or unexplored so far, are demanding for the implementation of architectured functional materials. Lastly, inverse design of architectures also made a breakthrough in recent years using topology optimization or data-driven methods, embracing the development of architectured functional materials.
This Research Topic aims to bring researchers together from related fields and provide readers a new taste on the current status of architectured functional materials. Topics addressed in this Research Topic may include, but are not limited to:
• Architectured materials/Metamaterials applied in soft robotics
• Architectured materials/Metamaterials made from soft materials or other active materials
• Wave manipulation via acoustic/elastic metamaterials
• Vibration control with functional materials/structures
• Active metamaterials/metasurfaces
• Nonreciprocal phenomena in architectured functional materials
• Other applications with architectured functional materials
• Inverse design of Architectured materials/metamaterials
Architectured materials, broadly termed as “metamaterials”, define their mechanical properties, responses, and activities through the interaction between their underlying materials and the microstructural geometry. Constructing those architectures with functional materials has readily proved as a way to make their mechanical behavior, usually uncommon in nature, accessible to other physical quantities, i.e. thermal, optical, chemical, electrical, or magnetic fields. These forms of material systems are able to sense, actuate, compute, or communicate, giving rise to a range of controllability, autonomy, intelligence, or learning abilities over their mechanics.
On one hand, architectured functional materials dramatically fueled applications in traditional and emerging areas, such as mechanical, aerospace, and biological engineering, thanks to their capabilities in programmable shape-morphing, tailoring material stiffness and toughness, and controlling low-frequency waves/vibrations among others. On the other hand, new architecture designs refreshed our understandings about the underpinning concepts in physics and mathematics related to their properties and behavior, i.e. the role of symmetry and topology.
Current advances in materials science and engineering as well as manufacturing provide architectured functional materials unparalleled opportunities. We can exploit new forms of material systems by developing distinct ways to correlate mechanics with different physical domains using the likes of chemo-mechanical, electromechanical, and opto-mechanical couplings. We can also improve the performance of current designs through innovations in materials and fabrications, such as shortening the material response time, enlarging the ranges of material parameters and boosting the efficiency in manufacturing.
Furthermore, progress in mechanics or even in physics and mathematics motivated a range of metamaterial structural designs that exhibit unconventional functions, i.e. negative Poisson’s ratio, perfect elastic cloaking, and one-way wave propagation. Some of those functions, either studied before or unexplored so far, are demanding for the implementation of architectured functional materials. Lastly, inverse design of architectures also made a breakthrough in recent years using topology optimization or data-driven methods, embracing the development of architectured functional materials.
This Research Topic aims to bring researchers together from related fields and provide readers a new taste on the current status of architectured functional materials. Topics addressed in this Research Topic may include, but are not limited to:
• Architectured materials/Metamaterials applied in soft robotics
• Architectured materials/Metamaterials made from soft materials or other active materials
• Wave manipulation via acoustic/elastic metamaterials
• Vibration control with functional materials/structures
• Active metamaterials/metasurfaces
• Nonreciprocal phenomena in architectured functional materials
• Other applications with architectured functional materials
• Inverse design of Architectured materials/metamaterials
