Nonlocal Elastic Metamaterials: Leveraging Intentional Nonlocality to Design Programmable Structures

该奖项支持旨在开发一种全新类型的弹性超材料的研究，这种材料利用有意非定域性作为设计原则来实现传统材料无法实现的新材料功能。迄今为止，超材料系统已经能够提供在很大程度上超越传统材料的独特性能，但这些性能仅限于非常狭窄的工作频率和功能范围，这反过来又限制了它们的实际应用。非局部方法将有助于克服将弹性超材料技术过渡到现实世界应用的道路上的实质性障碍。从更广泛的角度来看，本项目开发的理论和计算设计工具可以在其他领域和应用中产生深远的影响，例如针对极端事件的民用基础设施设计，建筑和交通系统噪声控制的隔音，以及用于电子设备，电信和国防系统的先进光子和电磁材料。这个概念依赖于一个有意的非局部和分层设计，通过利用跨空间尺度的非局部相互作用，将使材料具有非凡的宽带动态性能、可调的有效特性和可编程的动力学。在分层设计框架中整合非定域性导致了多尺度非定域性概念，这将作为跨尺度设计复杂材料行为的基础理论原则，并实现对有效材料特性的控制水平，这是单尺度操作无法实现的。该项目还将引入独特的非局部行动概念，作为实现高效材料调整和重新配置的手段。虽然非局域化是非局域化的自然结果，但它在控制材料特性方面的应用在很大程度上尚未被探索，并打开了一个极其灵活和可定制的设计空间，在这个空间中，材料以分布式的方式设计，从而为材料展示极端的结构效率铺平了道路。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This award supports research that aims to develop a radically new class of elastic metamaterials that leverages intentional nonlocality as a design principle to achieve new material functionalities unachievable in via traditional materials. To date, metamaterial systems have been able to deliver unique properties that can largely surpass traditional materials, but these properties are limited to very narrow ranges of operating frequencies and functionalities, which in turns limit their practical application. The nonlocal approach will help overcome substantial obstacles on the way to transition elastic metamaterial technology towards real world applications. From a broader perspective, the theoretical and computational design tools developed in this project can have far-reaching impacts in other fields and applications such as the design of civil infrastructures resilient against extreme events, acoustic insulation for noise control in buildings and transportation systems, and advanced photonic and electromagnetic materials for electronic devices, telecommunications, and defense systems. The concept hinges on an intentionally nonlocal and hierarchical design that, by exploiting nonlocal interactions across spatial scales, will enable materials with exceptionally broadband dynamic performance, tunable effective properties, and programmable dynamics. The integration of nonlocality within a hierarchical design framework leads to the concept of multiscale nonlocality that will serve as a foundational theoretical principle to engineer complex material behavior across scales and to achieve a level of control on effective material properties not achievable by operating at a single scale. This project will also introduce the distinctive concept of delocalized action as a means to achieve efficient material tuning and reconfiguration. While delocalization is a natural consequence of nonlocality, its use to control material properties is largely unexplored and opens an extremely flexible and customizable design space where the material is designed in a distributed sense, hence paving the way towards materials exhibiting extreme structural efficiency.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.