New Application of Rapid Prototyping

SHENZHEN, November 14, 2014 (Newswire.com) -
A new way to produce super-light, super-stiff material has just been developed in U.S.A a couple of days ago. The exotic material can be made from metal, ceramic and polymer under a high-precision rapid prototyping process called projection micro-stereolithography. This breakthrough marked a new application of rapid prototyping.

The new material is both super-light and super-stiff as it is based on micro-lattices that present nanoscale features, potentially benefiting aerospace and other transportation applications that depend on lightweight materials with high mechanical performance.

The new way or new process is named projection micro-stereolithography by its inventor, a team from MIT and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. And it has been validated with three materials metal, ceramic and polymer. The team claims the resulting materials are extremely light in terms of density but coming with far superior mechanical features due to the geometry of the lattice.

Stiffness and strength usually reduce with the density in a material, but these structures were shown to distribute and direct the loads so that a lighter structure could maintain its strength. As LLNL’s Christopher Spadaccini pointed out, “This material is among the lightest in the world. However, because of its micro-architected layout, it performs with four orders of magnitude higher stiffness than unstructured materials, like aerogels, at a comparable density.”

This assertion is backed up by MIT’s Nicholas Fang, “We found that for a material as light and sparse as aerogel, we see a mechanical stiffness that’s comparable to that of solid rubber, and 400 times stronger than a counterpart of similar density. Such samples can easily withstand a load of more than 160,000 times their own weight.”

High stiffness, low weight. The advantage and application of these materials are obvious. What first occur to us are aviation and aerospace industries. Then scientific research, consumer electronics, industrial machinery, energy, fast moving consumer goods, basically every corner of our life. The materials will be expressed in light parts, widgets, batteries, packages, covers and enclosures, etc.