SuperLight, SuperStrong Materials Breakthrough ??

[Rocketman]

For those who would like to imagineer future backpacking equipment possibilities, there has just been announced a breakthrough in superlight and superstrong materials (currently metals) from the labs of University of California, Irvine and Cal Tech.

The new concept involves the design of the material form at the nanostructural, microstructural and macroscopic scale levels for most efficient load transfer (or other properties), and then the experimental fabrication technologies that achieve that form.

The press release showed a small plate section of maybe 0.5 inches square and 1/8 inch this floating on top of a dandelion puff.

Science News

World's Lightest Material Is a Metal 100 Times Lighter Than Styrofoam

ScienceDaily (Nov. 17, 2011) — A team of researchers from UC Irvine, HRL Laboratories and the California Institute of Technology have developed the world's lightest material -- with a density of 0.9 mg/cc -- about one hundred times lighter than Styrofoam™.


Their findings appear in the Nov. 18 issue of Science.

The new material redefines the limits of lightweight materials because of its unique "micro-lattice" cellular architecture. The researchers were able to make a material that consists of 99.99 percent air by designing the 0.01 percent solid at the nanometer, micron and millimeter scales. "The trick is to fabricate a lattice of interconnected hollow tubes with a wall thickness 1,000 times thinner than a human hair," said lead author Dr. Tobias Schaedler of HRL.

The material's architecture allows unprecedented mechanical behavior for a metal, including complete recovery from compression exceeding 50 percent strain and extraordinarily high energy absorption.

"Materials actually get stronger as the dimensions are reduced to the nanoscale," explained UCI mechanical and aerospace engineer Lorenzo Valdevit, UCI's principal investigator on the project. "Combine this with the possibility of tailoring the architecture of the micro-lattice and you have a unique cellular material."

Developed for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the novel material could be used for battery electrodes and acoustic, vibration or shock energy absorption.

William Carter, manager of the architected materials group at HRL, compared the new material to larger, more familiar edifices: "Modern buildings, exemplified by the Eiffel Tower or the Golden Gate Bridge, are incredibly light and weight-efficient by virtue of their architecture. We are revolutionizing lightweight materials by bringing this concept to the nano and micro scales."



Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of California - Irvine.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

Journal Reference:

T. A. Schaedler, A. J. Jacobsen, A. Torrents, A. E. Sorensen, J. Lian, J. R. Greer, L. Valdevit, W. B. Carter. Ultralight Metallic Microlattices. Science, 2011; 334 (6058): 962 DOI: 10.1126/science.1211649

[Storm]

That stuff really looks great. I posted a link to the artical about the same time you were posting.

[Odd Man Out]

At first I was confused, since this is less dense than air, and thus should float. But then I decided that they must not be including the mass of the air in the pores (although they are including the volume of the pores).

[leaftye]

The only real application I can see for this is in composites. It might serve well as filler material or as the structural sandwich instead of honeycomb or balsa.

I suppose it it's very durable, it might be suitable for a footbed...

[Del Q]

I can see it now, "just got my new $5,000 XYZ material tent, it weighs 1 ounce, with poles!"

One thing for certain, things are going to continue to change.

[jlb2012]

sounds to me like a minor tweek to the aerogel tech

[leaftye]

sounds to me like a minor tweek to the aerogel tech

How so? It seems to be different from Aerogel in every way except incredibly low density.