As part of my Physics course I need to do a long winded project on a material describing its mechanical properties mainly but also with freedom to describe it more deeply. Since this happens to be a materials section I was wondering can anybody suggest a material to do my work on. I would imagine it can be pretty much anything so long as it is not something which has bee created only once and has next to no information for it. Would like it to be interesting more than anything which probably means in physics "unusual" i.e. it doesn't act as you would expect or something similar. Anyway thanks in advance!

I hope I can help with this. Maybe you'll get some ideas.
Anisotropic materials here: http://www.jwave.vt.edu/crcd/kriz/lectures/Anisotropy.html

Thanks, printed and being read through now.

My personal favorite material is LiquidMetal
http://www.liquidmetal.com/index/
I did a report on it in Materials Engineering my 2nd year.

The LiquidMetal thing is cool. I'd heard of metallic glass, but I didn't know there were manufactured products, yet.

SirShanson, if it fits your requirements in materials, have a look at pillared clays, zeoliites, and similar engineered catalysts.

I had a piece of nitinol when I was younger it was interesting.

Been away a bit so excuse the late response. Thank you for all your replies looking in to all of them and deciding by time half-term ends. Thanks again.

SirS