Mechanical metamaterials
Co-Chairs:
Johannes T.B. Overvelde, AMOLF
Sung Hoon Kang, Johns Hopkins University
Lucas Meza, University of Washington
Summary:
Mechanical metamaterials, namely materials whose mechanical properties are determined by geometry rather than composition, have seen an explosion of activity in recent years thanks to the advent of advanced fabrication and computational techniques. They have demonstrated properties that are entirely untenable in traditional engineering materials, such as negative Poisson’s ratio, pentamode stiffness, negative thermal expansion coefficient, and negative bulk modulus. Some particularly exciting directions include the creation of programmable, shape changing and advanced signaling materials, where nonlinearities often play a crucial role, and materials activated by external stimuli such as heat, pressure, electricity or chemical activity.
This symposium aims to bring together researchers from diverse backgrounds to discuss current advances in mechanical metamaterials. This field lies at the cusp between physics, engineering and mathematics, and has broad applications to the fields of biology, nanomaterials, energy materials, and medicine. We invite contributions from researchers working on the design, fabrication, dynamic, and active/responsive mechanical metamaterials, and the symposium will be organized around these four areas. We particularly invite contributions on topics involving the coupling of mechanical and non-mechanical interactions (i.e. light, heat, electricity, etc). We hope this symposium provides an avenue for researchers to forge new interdisciplinary connections.