2021年机械超材料热点回眸

Memorable sounds in mechanical metamaterial field in 2021

近年来,受益于3D打印先进制造技术和机器学习设计方法的快速发展,机械超材料的研究取得了卓越的成果,实现了一系列自然界罕见甚至不存在的反常规、反直觉的力学性能。与自然材料不同,机械超材料的性质主要来源于人工结构而非材料本身化学组分,故而具有巨大的设计空间。2021年,机械超材料领域涌现出了一批非常优秀的工作。从机械超材料的特异力学性能、智能化设计方法和基于增材制造的加工工艺3个方面回顾了2021年度的相关研究热点,重点关注了机械超材料与机器学习、模块化设计和3D打印制造工艺的融合。

Inspired by electromagnetic metamaterials, mechanical metamaterials have been a focus in various fields. In recent years, benefited from the rapid development of 3 D printing and automated machine learning designing methods, the mechanical metamaterials study has achieved a series of excellent results, enabling metamaterials to have unconventional and counterintuitive mechanical properties that are rare or even non-existent in nature. Unlike common materials, the properties of mechanical metamaterials are mainly derived from artificial structures rather than chemical components, which permits a huge designing space. This article reviews some relevant research highlights of mechanical metamaterials of 2021 in terms of unusual mechanical properties, intelligent design methods and additive manufacturing-based fabrication technology, in which the fusion of mechanical metamaterials and machine learning, modular design and 3 D printing is focused and discussed.