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
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