The study is focused on ultra-light foam concrete (FC) aimed as a thermal insulation material. Two important properties of such material were investigated: compressive strength and thermal conductivity. In the conducted tests, the influence of the air-dry density (200–500 kg/m³), type of foaming agent (synthetic and protein) and binder type (ordinary Portland cement—OPC; calcium sulphoaluminate cement—CSA; metakaolin; siliceous fly ash—SFA; calcareous fly ash—CFA) on the mentioned properties were examined. The results confirmed the dependence of compressive strength and thermal conductivity on the FC density but also indicated the important effect of the nature of the foaming agent and the binder type. The best thermo-mechanical properties were obtained for the foam concrete made of protein-based foaming agent, OPC and metakaolin. Simultaneously, the use of CSA mixed with metakaolin and foam based on the synthetic foaming agent also shows satisfactory properties.

In this work, we present a new method for the design of heat flux manipulating devices, with emphasis on their fabricability. The design is obtained as solution of a nonlinear optimization problem where the objective function represents the given heat flux manipulation task, and the design variables define the material distribution in the device. In order to facilitate the fabrication of the device, the material at a given point is chosen from a set of predefined metamaterials. Each candidate material is assumed to be a laminate of materials with high conductivity contrast, so it is a metamaterial with a highly anisotropic effective conductivity. Following the discrete material optimization (DMO) approach, the fraction of each material at a given finite element of the mesh is defined as a function of continuous variables, which are ultimately the design variables. This DMO definition forces the fraction of each candidate to tend to either zero or one at the optimal solution. As an application example, we designed an easy-to-make device for heat flux concentration and cloaking.

We present a new method for the design of devices to manipulate the displacement field in Elastic materials. It consists of solving a nonlinear optimization problem where the objective function defines the error in matching a desired displacement field, and the design variables determine the required material distribution within the device. In order to facilitate fabrication, the material at a given point of the device is chosen from a set of predefined materials, giving raise to a discrete optimization problem that is converted into a continuous one using the Discrete Material Optimization technique. The candidate materials maybe simple, isotropic materials, but the device made of them behaves as a whole as a metamaterial, enabling the manipulation of the displacement field in ways that are inconceivable in nature. As an example of application, a device for elastostatic cloaking or unfeelability is designed.