Multiscale methods for simulations of mechanical metamterials

Project objectives

This project concerns the development of efficient multiscale methods for simulations of mechanical metamaterials. Metamaterials are engineered materials with unconventional physical properties such as artificial magnetism, frequency band gaps and negative index of refraction.

The overall goal of this proposal is to explore (via numerical simulations and mathematical analysis) different possibilities of designing next generation seismic metamaterials to prevent the damages that ground vibrations, originating from earthquakes or daily transportation means such as railways, may have on buildings. Novel multiscale algorithms, bypassing the computational and theoretical limitations of existing algorithms will be developed. In particular, it will be possible to get rid of the geometric constraints, such as periodicity or spherical symmetries, assumed in the majority of recent results in the field. Main ingredients are a) designing an efficient multiscale coupling for high-contrast problems b) analysis of errors coming from coupling small scales variations to large scales, c) developing an authomated open source multiscale solver.