Stavros Gaitanaros, assistant professor in the Department of Civil and Systems Engineering, recently led the formation of a new Technical Committee within the Engineering Mechanics Institute of the American Society of Civil Engineers.
The purpose of the Architected Materials Committee is to promote and disseminate knowledge on the design and synthesis of Architected Materials (AM), as well as on the fundamental understanding of their unique properties.
The committee, comprised of over thirty members with expertise in the area of architected materials, envisions a shift towards a materials-by-design approach that takes advantage of rapid advancements in material synthesis, and in particular additive manufacturing, to produce novel material systems across many length scales and with multiple functionalities. Examples of interest include mechanical, seismic and acoustic metamaterials, additively manufactured lattices and foams, nanostructured materials, optimized architectures and design algorithms, materials for extreme environments, biomimetic, and natural architected materials. The research and outreach endeavors of the AM community will facilitate, accelerate and broaden the use of AM in a plethora of engineering applications including infrastructure, aerospace, automotive and biomedical components and structures.
“We believe that this new committee will establish EMI as a leader in this fertile and rapidly growing research area, strengthen its connection with Civil Engineering and Engineering Mechanics, and establish the EMI annual conference as the main venue for presenting new advances in the field.”
Activities for this new committee include a virtual workshop on Architected Materials in April and the corresponding symposium in the upcoming EMI conference in May. James Guest, associate professor in the Department of Civil and Systems Engineering and the deputy director of the Center for Additive Manufacturing and Architected Materials (JAM2), serves as vice-chair for the committee.