Emergence of Seismic Metamaterials: Current State and Future Perspectives

The abstract explains that metamaterial ideas first developed for electromagnetic waves have been adapted to other wave and transport processes, including elastodynamics and acoustics. It states that seismic metamaterials have emerged in the last decade for soft soils structured at the meter scale. It describes how seismic metamaterials can be implemented in different locations: as tuned resonators buried in soil, around building foundations or near soil–structure interfaces, and as above-surface resonators. The abstract also notes that full-scale experiments on holey soils were used to test such concepts. As a perspective article, it summarizes research advances across these types and provides an inventory of which material parameters can and cannot be achieved, particularly from the effective medium theory viewpoint. It concludes with future perspectives including large-scale auxetic metamaterials for building foundations, tree-like forests for seismic protection, and metamaterial-like transformed urbanism at the city scale.