3D/4D Printing of Polymers: Recent Advances and Applications
A special issue of Polymers (ISSN 2073-4360). This special issue belongs to the section "Polymer Processing and Engineering".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 May 2026 | Viewed by 93
Special Issue Editors
Interests: 3D printing of polymers; thermosetting polymers; computational mechanics; thermodynamics; electromagnetism; metamaterials; inverse analysis
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: material extrusion additive manufacturing; biopolymers; 3D printing; composites; lightweight structures; metamaterials
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Several industrialized countries have articulated strategies to revitalize their industries, stressing the importance of advanced manufacturing and the development of related innovative research tools. These strategies have highlighted the role that additive manufacturing can play for developers of advanced next-generation systems. Industries stand to make significant gains by understanding and adopting the latest tools and processes in the field of manufacturing, particularly 3D and 4D printing polymers using material extrusion-based systems.
The dramatic increase in computational power for mathematical modeling and simulation highlights the significant role scientific computing can play in the analysis of many emerging complex manufacturing processes, including 3D and 4D polymer printing. However, for this goal to be realized, experimentally validated next-generation computational tools must be developed in order to enable engineers and scientists to rapidly develop and analyze new additive manufacturing processes, resulting in superior products produced at lower overall operational costs.
Of particular interest for this Special Issue is the design and synthesis of novel surface-based materials and the fabrication of complex three-dimensional and four-dimensional (time-dependent) structures that exhibit desired mechanical, thermal, electrical, magnetic, and optical behaviors. In many cases, these manufacturing processes, especially those involving material extrusion for 3D and 4D printing, may involve complex multi-step multi-physical stages that combine disparate techniques in order to create structures that are impossible to construct using standard manufacturing methods.
Dr. Bilen Emek Abali
Dr. Christina Völlmecke
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-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Polymers 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 2700 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
- material extrusion (MEX) based printing
- 3D printing
- composite material printing
- multimaterial printing
- time-dependent structures
- metamaterials
- functional materials
- optimization
- digital twin technology
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