Research interests:

I am currently working as part of Exeter's "Auxetic Materials Research Group". This research group's primary concern is with materials with negative Poisson's ratios, which are commonly called 'auxetic'.  These materials get fatter when stretched, and thinner when compressed. This unusual property has far-reaching consequences for numerous applications in science and engineering.

I have recently submitted a doctoral thesis entitled 'New Auxetic Materials' in which I have been looking at new structures and mechanism that produce negative Poisson's ratios. I have then investigated ways of downscaling these mechanisms to the molecular level in an attempt to design tailor-made molecular auxetics.

Recent publications include:

  1. J.N Grima and K.E. Evans, The modelling and synthesis of auxetic materials,  Proceedings of the 3rd Materials Chemistry conference, Exeter (UK), July 1997, P125.
  1. C.W. Smith, J.N. Grima, B.D. Caddock, R.J. Wootton and K.E. Evans, Microstructures producing negative Poisson’s ratios: Experiment and models, Proceedings of the Spring Conference of the Society for Experimental  Mechanics, Cincinnati (USA),  June 1999, p.184-187
  1. J.N Grima and K.E. Evans, Molecular auxetic materials, Proceedings of the 4th  Materials Chemistry conference, Dublin (Ireland), July 1999, B2.1.
  1. J.N Grima, A. Alderson and K.E. Evans, Zeolites with negative Poisson’s ratios, Proceedings of the 4th Materials Chemistry conference, Dublin (Ireland), July 1999.  P81.
  1. J.N. Grima and K.E. Evans, Networked nanostructured polymers with negative Poisson’s ratios, Abstract accepted for publication at the Materials Research Society  Spring Conference, San Francisco, California (USA), April 2000.
  1. J.N. Grima and K.E. Evans, Rotating squares with negative Poisson’s ratios, Accepted  for publication in J. Mat. Sci. Lett., February 2000.