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[Display omitted] • Highlighting the status, inherent barriers, and challenges of multi-material 4D printing. • A strategic research roadmap based on the opportunities and challenges in engineering and interdisciplinary design. • Proposal of a design for 4D printing framework. The combination of scientific advances in additive manufacturing (AM) and smart materials (SMs) has enabled the development of a new interdisciplinary research area: 4D printing. This technology offers – via stimuli-responsive materials – promising transformation capabilities to objects whether at the functional, shape, or property levels. By considering such capabilities, researchers from multiple disciplines have investigated a large spectrum of stimuli-SMs associations with proofs-of-concept built from either commercial or custom 3D printers. Despite the abundant initiatives, 4D printing requires additional developments to meet robust system applications for the industry. The paper aims to highlight the status, inherent barriers, and challenges of 4D printing to be addressed from a product-systems design perspective. It firstly reminds the fundamentals of SMs, processes, stimulus, and AM to which a synthesis of significant research works related to 4D printing highlighting the current status as well as scientific, technical, and organizational limitations is provided. Beyond this comprehensive study, the paper emphasizes opportunities and challenges from multiple perspectives and draws a research roadmap for engineering design and cross-disciplinary design. The outcome of the work tends to structure research efforts for the next decade towards the development of smart products that meet use for humans and the industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: An optimizing procedure of microwave absorber is proposed based on the absorbing mechanism for one-layer microwave absorber in this paper. Amplitude–frequency characteristic of the material is obtained under optimal fitting electromagnetic parameters together by using the optimizing method. The influence of dispersion of electromagnetic parameters and the thickness on the performance of the absorbing material is analyzed. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The aim of the paper is to consider the role that surface engineering has to play in the area of environmental design and to highlight some aspects of the surface engineering technologies which need to be considered from a lifecycle viewpoint, but are rarely explicitly discussed. The benefits of surface engineering are addressed by consideration of case studies stressing different performance enhancements and consequential environmental benefits. The lifecycle aspects are largely drawn from the authors own experience, and again use case studies identifying a series of issues. Overall the authors believe in the importance of surface engineering within environmental design but stress the need for lifecycle analysis in order to justify its use. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Choosing the optimal material and manufacturing process combination for a given engineering component application is mostly non-trivial and involves considerable design expertise and experience. This choice is not made in isolation of a lot of other conflicting design issues, technical and non-technical, as well as the need to satisfy interface requirements with adjoining components. This paper describes, through a practical case study, a systematic approach to designing engineering components, with an emphasis on selecting appropriate materials and manufacturing processes. The approach adopted exploits commercially available technologies only, avoiding more exotic materials and processes that may satisfy the technical demands but are inherently risky and prohibitively expensive. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]