Ultralight 3D printed parts show exceptional strength

The material, developed by a team from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), is described in Science.

Titled ‘Ultralight, Ultrastiff Mechanical Metamaterials,’ the article describes the team’s development of micro-architected metamaterials - artificial materials with properties not found in nature – that maintain a nearly constant stiffness per unit mass density, even at ultralow density. Materials with these properties could someday be used to develop parts and components for aircraft, cars and space vehicles.

According to LLNL, most lightweight cellular materials have mechanical properties that degrade substantially with reduced density because their structural elements are more likely to bend under applied load. The team’s metamaterials, however, are said to exhibit ultra stiff properties across more than three orders of magnitude in density.

‘These lightweight materials can withstand a load of at least 160,000 times their own weight,’ said LLNL engineer Xiaoyu ‘Rayne’ Zheng in a statement ‘The key to this ultrahigh stiffness is that all the micro-structural elements in this material are designed to be over constrained and do not bend under applied load.’