Smart Structures and Dynamical Systems Laboratory (SSDSL)
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Education

  • Ph.D., Engineering Mechanics, Virginia Tech, 2009
  • M.S., Mechanical Engineering, METU, 2006
  • B.S., Mechanical Engineering, METU, 2004

Teaching Interests

Professor Erturk's teaching focuses on structural dynamics and vibrations, both undergraduate and graduate levels. His courses cover fundamental concepts in mechanical and aerospace engineering, emphasizing system modeling, analysis, and experimental implications. He integrates multidisciplinary approaches in teaching to prepare students for cutting-edge research and applications. His further teaching interests are in smart materials and structures, metamaterials/metastructures, bioinspired actuation, and energy harvesting from dynamical systems.

Research Interests

Professor Erturk's theoretical and experimental research program is centered on dynamics, vibration, and wave propagation in passive and active structures. Specifically, he aims to understand, manipulate (control), and leverage vibration and wave phenomena across geometric scales and applications, ranging from nonlinear energy harvesting and bioinspired underwater actuation to phononic crystal-based elastic/acoustic wave guiding and digitally programmable metamaterial–based vibration attenuation, and from ultrasonic communication to guided wave-based transcranial ultrasound.

Recent Publications

  • Wang, C. and Erturk, A., 2025, “Envelope Solitons in a Piezoelectric Metamaterial Beam Obeying the Nonlinear Schrödinger Equation,” Journal of the Mechanics and Physics of Solids, 204, 106259.
  • Alfahmi, O. and Erturk, A., 2024, “Programmable Hardening and Softening Cubic Inductive Shunts for Piezoelectric Structures: Harmonic Balance Analysis and Experiments,” Journal of Sound and Vibration, 571, 118029.
  • Thomes, R., Rosa, M., and Erturk, A., 2024, “Experimental Realization of Tunable Exceptional Points in a Resonant non-Hermitian Piezoelectrically Coupled Waveguide,” Applied Physics Letters, 124, 061702.
  • Farokhi, H., Kohtanen, E., and Erturk, A., 2023, “Extreme Parametric Resonance Oscillations of a Cantilever: An Exact Theory and Experimental Validation,” Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing, 196, 110342.
  • Alshaqaq, M., Sugino, C., and Erturk, A., 2022, “Programmable Rainbow Trapping and Bandgap Enhancement via Spatial Group Velocity Tailoring in Elastic Metamaterials,” Physical Review Applied, 17, L021003.