Overview of multifunctional materials

Multifunctional design has evolved over the past decade, moving away from discrete unifunctional subsystems with clearly defined boundaries, to produce systems design and materials design methods that blend performance in new and innovative ways. This presentation looks at the development of multifunctional design from a systems and a materials perspective. A classification of multifunctional designs is presented, in terms of the decreasing scales at which the boundaries of subsystems, components and materials are blurred. Guidelines for identifying multifunctional opportunities at the system and material scale are also discussed.