Recent Progress in the Additive Manufacturing of Smart Materials
A Special Issue of Materials (ISSN 1996-1944) belonging to the section "Manufacturing Processes and Systems".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 December 2026 | Viewed by 732
Editors
2. DCU Institute for Advanced Processing Technology (DCU APT), D09 V209 Dublin, Ireland
3. I-Form Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre, D04 C1P1 Dublin, Ireland
Interests: additive manufacturing; laser processing; smart material processing; material design and functionalisation
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: smart polymers and composites; hybrid and nano-composites; smart material processing; surface treatments
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
This Special Issue presents recent advances in the additive manufacturing (AM) of smart materials, highlighting emerging strategies for fabricating. By enabling precise control over geometry, composition, and internal architecture, additive manufacturing offers unique opportunities to engineer materials and devices that actively respond to external stimuli such as temperature, stress, electric or magnetic fields, and chemical environments.
The contributions in this Special Issue explore a broad range of smart material systems, including stimuli-responsive polymers, multifunctional composites, piezoelectric materials, and metallic systems. Particular attention is given to shape memory alloys, especially nitinol, whose thermomechanical behavior makes them attractive for functional and adaptive components. Recent progress in AM techniques for processing such alloys is discussed, with emphasis on the control of microstructure, phase transformation behavior, and functional performance. Developments in 4D printing—where additively manufactured structures are designed to change shape or functionality over time in response to environmental triggers—are also highlighted, as well as structures with integrated sensing, actuation, and adaptive capabilities
Several articles further address advances in multi-material printing, process optimization, and microstructural tailoring that enable enhanced functionality and reliability. The application areas covered include biomedical devices, soft robotics, sensing systems, and aerospace structures. Collectively, the papers in this Special Issue illustrate the growing potential of additive manufacturing to enable next-generation smart materials and adaptive systems, while also identifying key challenges and future research directions for the field.
Prof. Dr. Dermot Brabazon
Dr. Denise Bellisario
Guest Editors
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 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.
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-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Materials is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly 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 2600 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
- additive manufacturing
- smart materials
- shape memory alloys (nitinol)
- 4D printing
- stimuli-responsive materials
- functional and adaptive structures
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