Engineered lightweight materials for translational sustainable solutions: modelling, experimental characterizations and environmental assessments

The global push for sustainable development continues to strengthen the positioning of advanced materials towards reducing products’ environmental impact across a vast range of industries. Among the various families of advanced materials that have received critical attention, engineered lightweight materials (ELMs) have been acknowledged as key enablers of sustainable solutions.
From high-performance meta-materials, auxetic lightweight structures, and nature-inspired material systems to wood-based engineered composites, the multitudes of emerging ELMs have become pivotal in addressing issues around materials consumption, improving energy efficiency, and enhancing life-cycle performance across different industrial sectors. As the demand for resilient yet eco-friendly products and infrastructure grows, the exploration of ELMs for diverse applications will continue to gain prominence. Premised on the forgoing, concrete evaluations of how these materials perform, how they can be optimized and how they can be adapted to meet sustainable objectives while maintaining their performance integrity is a critical research challenge that requires a mix of technical solutions.

Despite the significant advancements in material science, several challenges remain in realizing the full potential of ELMs. In this spirit, the key problem addressed in this special Research Topic is the need for optimized design, performance assessment, and sustainable integration of ELMs across diverse industries. More specifically:

1. Performance under diverse loading regimes. The real-world applications of ELMs demand a thorough understanding of their behaviour under complex and varying working conditions. Ultimately, the evaluation of their performance under the broader elasto-dynamics and environmental loads will involve methods that range from multi-scale methods, the classical mechanics-based numerical method to recent data-driven techniques anchored on artificial intelligence framework.

2. Prototypical life-cycle optimization. At the moment, ELMs are promoted for their eco-friendly attributes. However, their entire life cycle (from sourcing to disposal) needs to be rigorously assessed. Life-cycle assessments and environmental impact analyses are essential to truly validate the sustainability claims of these materials.

3. Scalability and fabrication challenges. Moving from lab-scale innovations to industrial-scale production often presents notable hurdles in terms of material consistency, fabrication efficiency, and cost. Advanced manufacturing techniques (such as additive manufacturing) alongside the optimization of material formulations, are critical to overcoming these barriers.

4. Interdisciplinary gaps. Research into ELMs remains siloed within various specialized journals. This limits the cross-pollination of ideas across disciplines such as materials science, structural engineering, and emerging techno-economic modelling paradigms. A more integrated approach is needed to accelerate the adoption of ELMs in real-world applications.

Ultimately, addressing the aforementioned goals requires a combination of theoretical modelling, experimental validation, and practical case studies that offer a holistic view of ELMs’ potential. Therefore, this issue seeks studies and contributions that demonstrate significant advancements towards addressing these problems. This includes, but is not limited to contributions that:

• Develop and validate models that predict the performance of ELMs under realistic service conditions;
• Experimentally investigate the mechanical, thermal, and environmental properties of novel lightweight materials.
• Explore sustainable processing techniques and manufacturing advancements that can support scalable production (additive manufacturing, 3D/4D printing, etc);
• Provide case studies that showcase the successful deployment of ELMs in projects aimed at improving resource efficiency and reducing carbon footprints;
• Encourage interdisciplinary research that bridges the gap between material innovation and practical applications in industries like automotive, aerospace, consumer products, general transportation infrastructure, and renewable energy;

We welcome contributions from a broad range of disciplines, including materials science, structural engineering, computational modelling, environmental engineering, and beyond. Potential authors are invited to submit original research papers, review articles, or case studies. We particularly encourage interdisciplinary contributions that address the nexus between sustainability, material performance, and cutting-edge modelling or characterization techniques. By addressing these challenges, researchers can contribute to the development of resilient and eco-friendly infrastructures that meet the growing demand for translational sustainable solutions towards a decarbonized economy.