ADVANCED MATERIALS & PROCESSES | APRIL 2024 56 Even traditionally brittle materials like concrete can absorb kinetic energy without breaking when 3D printed to be exceptionally thin. This innovative approach allows the team to tailor designs for various purposes, expanding the possibilities for materials applications. CASE STUDY: LIGHTWEIGHT MATS The team recently used metal 3D printing to create lightweight aircraft runway mats (Figs. 4a and b). Made of a carbon fiber reinforced metal composite, the mats offer high stiffness while remaining lightweight. They serve as an alternative to conventional mats, exhibiting improved longevity and mechanical properties. Applications include rapid deployment for defense, public health, and natural disaster response. The panels are based on architected materials that can absorb deformation and energy, change configurations, and potentially heal themselves. During testing, the mats withstood multiple landing and takeoff cycles and exhibited no signs of failure, in contrast to conventional mats. The architected materials’ intelligent design allows the mats to absorb impact energy elastically, making them suitable for various aeronautical applications, including protecting runways from the impact of aircraft landings. The most remarkable feature of these architected materials is their exceptional ability to dissipate energy and facilitate functions like actuation, morphing, and configuration changes while the base material only deforms in the elastic regime. Importantly, this means that these materials experience minimal internal deformation, preserving their structural integrity without any damage or inelastic behavior. In essence, these materials are designed primarily by leveraging geometric and mechanical principles based on their inherent properties. As a result, controlled snap-through instabilities occur without causing harm or accumulating wear and tear in the material. What’s truly fascinating is that virtually any material can be employed—metal, polymers, rubber, concrete, and others— as long as it is designed to remain in the elastic regime. CONCLUSION The team at Purdue University is pioneering the development of architected materials inspired by nature’s design, showcasing exceptional strength, flexibility, and lightweight properties. From the creation of aircraft runway mats using metal 3D printing to biomedical applications and seismic earthquake solutions, the versatility of these materials is promising. The ability to scale these materials to meet the specific application demonstrates their potential impact across diverse engineering challenges. The researchers envision a future where these innovative materials—designed to absorb energy elastically and undergo controlled buckling—will revolutionize various industries, offering sustainable and effective solutions to large-scale problems. As this field continues to evolve, the Purdue lab is optimistic about the emergence of new and exciting engineering applications with the potential to address significant challenges on both the micro and macro scale. ~SMST For more information: Pablo Zavattieri, Jerry M. and Lynda T. Engelhardt Professor, Lyles School of Civil Engineering, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907, zavattie@ purdue.edu. 10 Fig. 4 — (a) The author, Prof. Pablo Zavattieri, lifts an aircraft runway mat (b), made of new lightweight architected materials developed at Purdue University. (b) (a) Interested in advertising with the ASM International Organization on Shape Memory and Superelastic Technologies? Contact Mark Levis at mark.levis@asminternational.org. FEATURE
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