Structural materials articles from across Nature Portfolio

Structural materials are materials used or studied primarily for their mechanical properties, as opposed to their electronic, magnetic, chemical or optical characteristics. This can include a materials response to an applied force, whether this response is elastic or plastic, its hardness, and its strength.

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News and Comment

  • Editorial |

    Materials design has largely expanded to multiple compositions, which requires the mixing of an increasing number of elements. In this joint Focus issue with Nature Materials, we take a closer look at the role of computational methods for guiding exploration within such vast chemical spaces.

    Nature Computational Science 3, 185-186

  • Comments & Opinion |

    Dr Valentino Cooper, a Distinguished R&D Staff Member at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, talks to Nature Computational Science about his research on density functional theory and on designing high-entropy materials and piezoelectrics.

    • Fernando Chirigati
    Nature Computational Science 3, 116-117

  • Research Highlights |

    An article in Science reports new insight in the formation of defects during 3D printing of metals and presents a highly accurate method to track defects as they form, opening the way for closed-loop control systems.

    • Giulia Pacchioni
    Nature Reviews Materials 8, 78

  • Comments & Opinion |

    The transition to climate-friendly cities has led to a renaissance of wood as a renewable building material. To prevent severe raw material shortages in the future, the material-first utilization of wood in long-living, resource-efficient engineered wood products and constructions will be key.

    • Maximilian Pramreiter
    • , Tobias Nenning
    •  & Johannes Konnerth
    Nature Reviews Materials 8, 217-218
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