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catdynamics | July 10, 2014A research group at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has produced ultrastiff ultralowdensity metamaterials by 3D printing of microarchitected microlattices.
This is very cool - they do additive 3D printing using microstereolithography with nanocoating and postprocessing and can make self-similar lattices with densities varying by several orders of magnitude in bulk density but near constant stiffness.
Construction material can be metal, ceramic or polymer.
LLNL engineered microlattices from Zheng et al Science 344 1373
The lattice geometry can be controlled to choose what mechanical…