Extreme mechanical resilience of self-assembled nanolabyrinthine materials
Abstract
Nano- and microarchitected materials to date have relied on additive manufacturing techniques to produce beam-, plate-, and shell-based architectures that achieve highly desired mechanical properties while being limited to low-throughput volumes as well as to periodic and symmetric designs that deteriorate if symmetry-breaking defects are present. Here, we demonstrate the fabrication of nano-architected materials via scalable self-assembly processes with features that span across multiple scales—from nanometers to centimeters. Through experiments and simulations, we show that the smooth, doubly curved, shell-based geometries achieved through this process can surpass truss-based architectures in terms of energy absorption, stiffness-to-density response, and especially, mechanical resilience through an unprecedented combination of material size effects and optimal topology.
- Publication:
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Proceedings of the National Academy of Science
- Pub Date:
- March 2020
- DOI:
- 10.1073/pnas.1916817117
- Bibcode:
- 2020PNAS..117.5686P