We are a research group working on metamaterials and additive manufacturing for medical and sustainability applications. Based in the Department of Engineering Science at the University of Oxford, we work within the wider Solid Mechanics and Materials Engineering Group.
The localised control over material properties offered by additive manufacturing (AM) has enormous potential for creating metamaterials with novel and interesting behaviour. These include mechanical support, controlled release, and variation of these with time. Our laboratory focuses primarily on additive manufacturing of metamaterials for controlled bioresorption and biodegradation. Our work is experimentally focused, spanning materials, design, manufacturing, and testing, and is complemented by growing capabilities in multiscale modelling.
We are particularly interested in understanding and controlling how the mechanical behaviour of materials changes as they degrade. This involves interactions between factors including polymer hydrolysis, water absorption, and fatigue. We aim to use advanced AM techniques to design and make novel metamaterial structures to gain control over these properties. In addition we are interested in drug release applications, where we aim to use metamaterial-based control of mass transport to influence delivery of therapeutics. Related to polymer biodegradation, we have a further interest in polymer sustainability more broadly, aiming to use AM and machine learning to improve the properties of recycled polymers.
Our lab uses AM techniques including PBF, FDM, and SLA, primarily focusing on biodegradable polymer-based systems. We have expertise in material processing for AM, as well as degradation, mechanical, and fatigue testing, both combined and separately.
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