XS-Meta is an Innovative European Training Network with the objective of training a new generation of researchers in multiscale material-structure design of high-technology structural systems, using functionally graded 3D-printed metamaterials.
Additive manufacturing is a rapidly increasing market and turning into a mature technology that brings new scientific and industrial opportunities, and a new paradigm in the design of industrial components. 3D printing is reaching finer resolutions, allowing for the design of "materials’’ consisting of printed optimized microstructures which result, at the continuum observational scale, in salient or tailored mechanical properties which are very different to those of the base material used to print the component. Metamaterials largely expand the design space bringing a continuum spectrum of materials with tailored and unique properties, which may be different at different locations in the component with not relevant added cost. Thanks to this change in paradigm, components may be designed at dual scales, optimizing not only the geometry of the component, but also the material at every location in that component, resulting in industrial components made of functionally graded metamaterials, where the material at each location in the component is unique. To address this industrial challenge there are many complex technologies which need to be developed in multiple fields: manufacturing, material science, mathematics, modeling, machine learning, topology optimization, component design, virtual prototyping and component prototype certification. The multinational, multidisciplinary and multisectoral consortium in XS-Meta takes a definite step towards developing all needed aspects for bringing the functionally-graded metamaterial technologies that will shape the future of the European industry.
The range of industrial application fields of the technologies is large: aerospace, defence/security, automotive, biomechanics, virtual prototyping, etc.
XS-Meta is a change of paradigm by which both the component topology and the metamaterial topology are simultaneously optimized through double inverse analyses and surrogate physics-based models obtained by data-driven techniques.
XS-Meta facilitates a multisectoral and multinational hands-on network research experience for the recruited Early Stage Researchers in a large value-added technology of high societal interest that will be key for the competitiveness of the European Society, and for the future of a new generation of researchers.
