Dissipative Metamaterials

In recent years, the popularity of metamaterials has increased significantly. These materials are not found in nature or made using chemical reactions, but are designed geometrically in the physics lab. Metamaterials can be given special, often counterintuitive, properties. For the most part, properties and functionalities of mechanical metamaterials have been derived from pure elasticity, ignoring dissipation.

In this research group, we ask ourselves the question whether we can combine geometry with dissipation to generate new kinds of functionality or interesting behaviour in mechanical metamaterials. In this context we can think about lots of types of dissipation, including viscoelastic damping, plasticity in metals or the superelastic effect in shape memory alloys. We use additive manufacturing and casting to generate specimens, which we test mechanically in a variety of ways. Using analytics and simulations, we can improve our understanding, predict and even design the response of dissipative metamaterials.

So far, this has already lead us to develop new types of multifunctional metamaterials, but we are continuously exploring new behaviour and ways to expand the possibilities of mechanical metamaterials.

Supervisor: Corentin Coulais

Research Team: Shahram Janbaz, Wenfeng Liu, David Dykstra

Videos: 

Postal Adress

Van der Waals-Zeeman Instituut
University of Amsterdam
P.O. Box 94485
1090 GL Amsterdam

Visit us

Science Park 904
C4.238 (4th floor)
1098 XH Amsterdam
The Netherlands

Contact us

Phone: +31 (0)20 525 6311
Fax:      +31 (0)20 525 5102
Email:   secr-iop-science(at)uva.nl