Editorial: Mechanical Metamaterials: Cutting-Edge Metastructures

While organizing this special topic, we invited papers on mechanical metamaterials that are artificially designed material systems with exotic properties rarely found in nature. The exciting features of mechanical metamaterials are usually defined by their topological architecture and microstructural connectivity rather than composition. We received three papers on mechanical metamaterials—two for fundamental research (static and dynamic) and one for applied research: 1) Anigbogu et al., Layered Metamaterial Beam Structure With Local Resonators for Vibration Attenuation: Model and Experiment., 2) Challapalli et al., Discovery of Cellular Unit Cells With High Natural Frequency and Energy Absorption Capabilities by an Inverse Machine Learning Framework, and 3) Xiao et al., A New Architecture of Morphing Wing Based on Hyperelastic Materials and Metastructures With Tunable Stiffness.