This symposium will cover the mechanical behavior of current and emerging nanocomposites and hybrid materials. The significant growth in structural nanocomposites and hybrid materials is driven by the demand for structures with excellent mechanical performance that are lightweight, and have multifunctional properties. This symposium is aligned with the growing emphasis on advanced manufacturing in the U.S. and abroad, and demands for load bearing structures and functional devices that can operate under extreme conditions of stress, temperature, pressure and chemical reactivity such as in space and within living matter.

The first part of this symposium will focus on engineering materials and composites (EM), including new insights into conventional deformation mechanisms, as well as novel phenomena (e.g. size-dependent brittle-to-ductile transition) in ceramic and metallic nanocomposites. Special emphasis will be placed on atomistic and nanoscale structure and defect dynamics due to recent advances into mechanical behavior at these length scales. Materials of interest include ceramic oxides, carbides, silicides, polymer-derived ceramics, biominerals, structural metals, lightweight alloys, high entropy alloys, and metallic glasses. Fundamental research into mechanical behavior as well as novel top-down and bottom-up synthetic methods (e.g. colloidal self-assembly, nanoscale additive manufacturing) will be accepted to this symposium.

The second part of this symposium focuses on biological and bioinspired materials (BM). Natural and synthetic hybrid materials that effectively combine disparate materials (e.g. ceramics and lightweight metals, metals and biopolymers) to achieve synergistic properties (e.g. high strength and toughness) will be highlighted. Topics also include stimulus responsive materials and adaptive structures with tunable structural and mechanical response to environmental changes.

alloy biomaterial ceramic ductility metal microstructure nanoscale porosity strength toughness