Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Soft lattices are fast emerging as an attractive choice for the design of flexible structures at both mesoscale (e.g., shoes, helmets) and microscale (e.g., auxetic metamaterials) due to their high porosity, light weight, and tailorable material properties such as stiffness and density. These properties make the use of soft lattices desirable in biomedical applications, soft robots, and energy-absorbing devices. The design and manufacture of soft lattices present a different set of challenges than their stiff counterparts owing to differences in manufacturing approaches and materials used. Novel design and manufacturing approaches are needed for easy and efficient fabrication of multimaterial and multifunctional soft lattice structures. Simultaneously, developing effective modeling and simulation strategies for the analysis of soft lattice mechanics is also challenging due to the: 1) multiple length scales involved and 2) complex nonlinear behavior arising from finite deformations, hyper-elastic material response, and instabilities, such as buckling. We invite high-quality original articles that focus on tackling these challenges for this Special Issue on the design, analysis, and manufacture of soft lattice structures.

Dr. Narasimha Boddeti
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Applied Mechanics is an international peer-reviewed open access quarterly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1200 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

design
soft lattices
metamaterials
3D printing
additive manufacturing

Published Papers (2 papers)

Download All Papers

Research

Jump to: Review

21 pages, 6445 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Nonuniform Deformation of Cell Structures Owing to Plastic Stress Wave Propagation

by Kohei Tateyama and Hiroyuki Yamada

Appl. Mech. 2021, 2(4), 911-931; https://doi.org/10.3390/applmech2040053 - 05 Nov 2021

Viewed by 1967

Abstract

In cell structures, unlike in dense bodies, nonuniform deformation occurs from the impact end, even at velocities in the order of tens to hundreds of meters per second. In this study, we experimentally examine the nonuniform deformation mechanism of cell structures. They prepared two kinds of specimens: nickel foam (Ni foam) and silicone-rubber-filled nickel foam (Ni/silicone foam). As a dynamic and impact test method (compression velocity of 20 m/s or more), we used a dynamic and impact load-measuring apparatus with opposite load cells to evaluate the loads on both ends of the specimen in one test. At compression velocities of 20 m/s or less, no nonuniform deformations were observed in the Ni foam and the Ni/silicone foam, and the loads on the impact and the fixed ends achieved force equilibrium. The Ni foam showed no change with an increasing strain rate, and the Ni/silicone foam showed a strong strain rate dependence of the flow stress. At a compression velocity of approximately 26 m/s, the loads differed at the two ends of the Ni/silicone foam, and we observed nonuniform deformation from the impact end. The results of the visualization of the load and deformation behavior obtained from both ends of the specimen revealed that the velocity of the plastic stress wave and the length of the specimens are important for nonuniform deformation. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Mechanics, Design, and Manufacture of Soft Lattices)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

Review

Jump to: Research

14 pages, 1382 KiB

Open AccessFeature PaperReview

Fabricating Lattice Structures via 3D Printing: The Case of Porous Bio-Engineered Scaffolds

by Antreas Kantaros and Dimitrios Piromalis

Appl. Mech. 2021, 2(2), 289-302; https://doi.org/10.3390/applmech2020018 - 25 May 2021

Cited by 37 | Viewed by 4238

Abstract

Over time, the fabrication of lattice, porous structures has always been a controversial field for researchers and practitioners. Such structures could be fabricated in a stochastic way, thus, with limited control over the actual porosity percentage. The emerging technology of 3D printing, offered an automated process that did not require the presence of molds and operated on a layer-by-layer deposition basis, provided the ability to fabricate almost any shape through a variety of materials and methods under the umbrella of the ASTM terminology “additive manufacturing”. In the field of biomedical engineering, the technology was embraced and adopted for relevant applications, offering an elevated degree of design freedom. Applications range in the cases where custom-shaped, patient-specific items have to be produced. Scaffold structures were already a field under research when 3D printing was introduced. These structures had to act as biocompatible, bioresorbable and biodegradable substrates, where the human cells could attach and proliferate. In this way, tissue could be regenerated inside the human body. One of the most important criteria for such a structure to fulfil is the case-specific internal geometry design with a controlled porosity percentage. 3D printing technology offered the ability to tune the internal porosity percentage with great accuracy, along with the ability to fabricate any internal design pattern. In this article, lattice scaffold structures for tissue regeneration are overviewed, and their evolution upon the introduction of 3D printing technology and its employment in their fabrication is described. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Mechanics, Design, and Manufacture of Soft Lattices)

► Show Figures