Ultra-light, ultra-stiff mechanical metamaterials
Xiaoyu Zheng (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory), Joshua Deotte (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory), Eric Duoss (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory), Howon Lee (MIT), Joshua Kuntz (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory), Monika Biener (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory), Sergei Kucheyev (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory), Nicholas Fang (MIT), Christopher Spadaccini (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory)
Mechanics and Dynamics of Periodic Structures
Wed 10:45 - 12:15
Salomon 101
It is a common perception that the mechanical properties of natural materials, such as foams and corks, degrade substantially with reduction of their weight. Here we present ultra-light weight structures that can exhibit superior specific stiffness and strength far greater than existing cellular structures and nature materials at the low density region. These ultra-light weight micro-lattice structures consist of micro-to nano-meter scale unit cells which resist to compression by stretch instead of bending. These micro-architectured materials are fabricated by a combination of techniques including projection micro-stereolithography, nanoscale coating, and sintering. Stiffness values of these materials is comparable to that of bulk polymer, while the actual mass density is lowered by >100 times. The lightest material reported here can carry up to 100,000 times of its own weight. Our scalable fabrication methodology provides a powerful platform to construct materials with extremely high stiffness, strength that outperforms current low density materials with potential applications in wide range of areas such as automotive and aerospace engineering, energy, and defense.