Advances in fabrication technologies, especially in AM, now allow the generation of a class of metamaterials called mechanical metamaterials that have enhanced, unusual mechanical properties and advanced functionalities, such as high energy absorption, quasi-zero stiffness, and mechanical logic. Society continues to push the boundaries of exploration of extreme environments such as outer space and deep sea using soft robots and aspires to improve fuel efficiency, cost, and environmental sustainability in the manufacture of things like aircraft components, car accessories, and biomedical devices. These activities necessitate the development of multifunctional metamaterials. Metamaterials featuring extraordinary properties offer tremendous possibilities for sustainable smart machines, intelligent systems, and robotic elements that can replace or augment complicated controlled systems.
This focus issue invites the most recent research on a variety of exciting topics such as (but not limited to):
- New materials, design, and functionalities (digital materials, auxetics, lattices, metamaterials, smart materials in robotics, intelligent systems, soft robots, and 4D printing)
- Current developments and issues of concern in robotic materials, design, and additive manufacturing
- Design methods for active materials and additive manufacturing using artificial intelligence, and topological optimization
- Characterization and innovative properties of metamaterials in robotics (morphing, mechanical, fatigue, aging, etc)
- Advanced additive manufacturing techniques of intelligent materials (4D printing, bioprinting, multi-material printing, AM processes, hybrid AM, and closed-loop 3D printing)
- Advanced modeling and simulation (mechanics of materials, constitutive modeling, shape memory effects, multi-physics, stimuli-responsive, coupling effects, etc)
- Metamaterials applications in sustainable soft robotics, Internet of Things (IoT) in intelligent structures, wearable electronics, microfluidics, energy harvesters, renewable energies, and self-healing structures
The publisher offers fully waived APCs to the targeted authors of the 4D Printing Society. Please find further information in the following link or contact guest editors for more information:
https://iopscience.iop.org/collections/mrx-230117-97