Groundbreaking work by a team of scientists from the University of Malta is making headlines in the international scientific press. Dr Joseph N.Grima and colleagues Pierre-Sandre Farrugia, Ruben Gatt and Victor Zammit have developed a way of designing structures of any size that shrink when heated.

The team's work was published this week in the ‘Proceedings of the Royal Society A’. It was also reported as breaking news by ‘New Scientist.com’, the website of New Scientist, which is cited as the World's No.1 Science and Technology News Service.

The work of the Maltese scientists which is funded by the Malta Council for Science and Technology (MCAST) and CHISMACOMB (an EU FP6 project), can be extremely useful in reducing the impact of thermal expansion on anything from bridges to microscopic systems.

The University of Malta team studied triangles with at least one side made from a different material to the others, connected by rotating joints. If the diverse materials change volume in response to temperature in a different way, the triangles may actually shrink in one direction when heated. They derived equations which describe the behaviour of their triangle-framework system and these are essential to predict the response to temperature of their structure, which can be constructed at any scale. In other words, their mathematical model makes it possible to choose exactly how such a structure behaves.

Dr Grima and his colleagues think lattices of such triangles could have all kinds of applications. "We have shown that it is possible to easily design systems which exhibit a tailor-made response to temperature," Grima said. "These systems can be constructed very cheaply and can be as big as a bridge or on a microscopic scale. By virtue of its construction, this structure should be able to bear loads without problems, he added.

The team is starting to experiment with real frameworks to see how they perform. Grima’s team of scientists is also interested in more complex materials. "By incorporating such a rigid framework into another softer material – like rubber – you could create a ‘solid’ with these anomalous thermal properties," Grima said.

"The University of Malta is gradually building an infrastructure to conduct world-class research in niche areas of engineering, science and medicine. Though we do not have a long standing tradition of institutional research, and despite the very modest  funds to sustain such endeavors, our up and coming researchers have shown, time and again, through their publications, that they can put us on the international map of scientific and technological innovation. I am sure that with the right investment and nurturing we will see Malta grow in profile in research which is an indispensable cornerstone of our emerging knowledge-based economy." said Prof. Camilleri, the Rector of the University of Malta.

This is a notable achievement in Research and Innovation in Malta", stated Mr. David Spiteri Gingell, Chairman, MCAST, "that proves that Maltese researchers have the potential to compete with the best on a European and Global level."

Further information can be found here. See an  animation which shows how a part of the framework behaves as temperature changes.