Engineers develop the world's lightest metal!
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Mechanical & Aerospace engineer Lorenzo Valdevit and fellow researchers at HRL Laboratories LLC, along with the California Institute of Technology, have won a 2012 Breakthrough Award from Popular Mechanics for their creation of a micro-lattice metal.
UC Irvine today - Monday, February 4, 2013
Multidisciplinary team of researchers develop world’s lightest materialUCI mechanical and aerospace engineer plays key role— Irvine, Calif., November 17, 2011 —
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The new metal -- which is 99.9 percent air -- is extremely strong yet so light that it can sit atop a dandelion's fluffy seeds without damaging them.
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.”
Popular MechanicsBuilding a Better Metal - Ultralight Micro-Lattice
Innovators: William Carter, Alan Jacobsen, Tobias Schaedler, HRL Laboratories; Julia R. Greer, Caltech; Lorenzo Valdevit, University of California, Irvine
What is it? An engineered metal mesh that is 100 times lighter than Styrofoam packing peanuts. It can be compressed by up to 50 percent and bounce perfectly back into shape. The technology was developed by a team from the Malibu-based HRL Laboratories, along with researchers from Caltech and the University of California, Irvine.
How is it made? The basic structure is made when beams of UV light are shot into a light-sensitive liquid resin that hardens into a lattice structure. This is similar to the two-dimensional photolithographic process used to create microchips but done in three dimensions. The resin lattice is coated with a thin film of metal, the resin is then dissolved away.
What can it do? The resulting metal mesh is hollow and light, like bird bones, yet structurally robust. It can be used as a cushioning or insulating material in cars or aircraft, and it has potential applications in the medical field as a possible scaffold for new bone growth.
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