Topic: Additive Manufacturing-Driven Advanced Microstructure Design

This Special Issue aims to address the frontier challenges in advanced microstructure design enabled by additive manufacturing (AM) technologies, a field that is rapidly advancing the integrated development of multifunctional, high-performance materials and structures. With its unique capability of point-by-point freeform fabrication, AM makes possible the realization of innovative micro/nanoscale mechanical metamaterials, multiscale hierarchical structures, and integrated fabrication of advanced composite microstructures. However, under the demanding service conditions of mechanical-thermal-fluidic multi-physics coupling, the functional requirements and mechanical properties of microstructures often exhibit complex competitive and synergistic relationships. Moreover, as the characteristic scale extends from nano/micro levels to macroscopic components, the coupling mechanisms among heat transfer, fluid flow, and mechanical response undergo fundamental changes, manifesting notable scale effects. It is therefore imperative to develop design strategies that integrate topology optimization and machine learning, enabling efficient data-driven exploration of the vast microstructural design space, and to establish a synergistic design theory for microstructures under mechanical-thermal-fluidic multi-physics coupling, thereby elucidating the cross-scale mapping relationships among functionality, performance, and process. Meanwhile, through the active design of material microstructural features such as grain morphology, texture, phase constitution, and defect distribution, precise control over mechanical properties, including strength, toughness, and fatigue resistance, can be achieved. To meet the demand for high integration of functionality and performance, cross-scale microstructural characterization and control techniques are being advanced to tightly link design, manufacturing, and performance prediction. Furthermore, the microstructural design of advanced composites opens new dimensions for AM, where the precise construction and property characterization of their multiphase and multiscale features are becoming pivotal for engineering applications.

This Special Issue will focus on theoretical, computational, and experimental advances in the above directions. We welcome the submission of original research articles, reviews, and perspective papers. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

● Advanced microstructural design strategies integrating topology optimization and machine learning for additive manufacturing;

● Innovative configurations of micro/nanoscale mechanical metamaterials and their realization via additive manufacturing;

● Synergistic design theory for microstructures under mechanical-thermal-fluidic multi-physics coupling;

● Active manipulation of mechanical properties through microstructural design of materials;

● Co-design of multiscale structures for additive manufacturing and scale effects;

● Cross-scale characterization and control of microstructures for high integration of functionality and performance;

● Microstructural design and property characterization of advanced composites.

Microstructure design, additive manufacturing, mechanical metamaterials, topology optimization, machine learning, multi-physics coupling, multiscale structures, microstructure characterization