ºÚÁÏÉç

Lattice metamaterials are a type of modern materials that are attracting a lot of attention due to their extraordinary properties that are not available or easily obtainable in nature or in conventional engineering materials. Virtually infinite variety of their internal constructions offer exceptional opportunities in terms of tailorability of their behaviour for a wide range of applications. However, at present, these opportunities cannot be realised because there is severe lack of understanding of how to select an internal construction so that it would deliver the desired performance.

Conventional physical testing is not a viable method for guiding the selection process for metamaterials due to sheer number of possible lattice geometries and topologies. The way forward would be through virtual testing, or computational material characterisation. Availability of robust, reliable and user-friendly characterisation tools is imperative for development of material design strategies, guidelines and methods that, once formulated, can be used by both the industrial engineers and the researchers to reveal the true practical potential of these materials and to facilitate their applications.

You will formulate and implement characterisation models for lattice metamaterials using a wide range of analytical and computational methods of mechanics of materials. You will apply them to develop systematic understanding of material performance capabilities, through which you will gain unique experience and expertise in the emerging field of the design of advanced materials. The computational studies will be supported by carefully designed experiments that will be carried out using advanced additive manufacturing (AM) and mechanical testing facilities.