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3D-Printed Material Can Carry 160,000 Times Its Own Weight
rtoz writes: Researchers have found a new material design based on the use of microlattices with nanoscale features, combining great stiffness and strength with ultralow density. The actual production of such materials is made possible by a high-precision 3-D printing process called projection microstereolithography. Normally, stiffness and strength declines with the density of any material; that's why when bone density decreases, fractures become more likely. But using the right mathematically determined structures to distribute and direct the loads, the lighter structure can maintain its strength. This newly invented material is among the lightest in the world. It can easily withstand a load of more than 160,000 times its own weight.
Could they make a thread of the stuff?
Can someone 3d print me a prosthetic?
Would this material make one possible?
If your mom was made of this material she'd be able to carry more weight than ten Hulks.
Normally, stiffness and strength declines with the density of any material;
[citation needed]. I'm thinking aluminum ladders are a great way to get up to your copper roof. Now try that the other way around, with a copper ladder using the same thickness of material you'd use to make an aluminum ladder.
That's just one example. I'm sure fellow Slashdotters can come up with more. Sure there might be some really, really broad corrrelation that supports the quoted statement. OK, Balsa is weaker than steel; but mercury is really dense and it can't support any load at all.
Read it again: declines with density. DECLINES. Mercury is very dense, hence its stiffness has DECLINED to the point where it is very low.
I use this technology. I print out more 3d printer material 4 or 5 times to make it over a million times stronger than it was originally. Then I print out my final device.
The working material is ants.
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No, read it as.... ...because of that follows next:
"Normally, stiffness and strength declines with the [decline in] density of any [single] material;"
"that's why when bone density decreases, fractures become more likely."
You: Read it again: declines with density. DECLINES. Mercury is very dense, hence its stiffness has DECLINED to the point where it is very low.
Subby: "that's why when bone density decreases, fractures become more likely"
Someone's incorrect here.
It has come to this.
Microstereolithography has become 3D printing. Soon we will read: Michelangelo made this statue with a form of 3D printing called sculpture.
But can microstereolithography be used to 3D print bitcoin?
In the limit, if the material weighs nothing, then 160,000 times nothing is still nothing.
Fruth Innovative Technologien has developed an algorithm to fill large volumes with such a scaffolding quickly. This speeds up building time and saves on the precious sinter powder, and yes, the scaffolding is very strong for its weight. They do this for more than a decade now. And now a MIT professor comes up with the same idea, and it is presented as a breakthrough. MIT marketing at work.
You know it's time for the next revolution when your rulers' names end with roman numerals.
Plenty of materials have great strength in one way but virtually lone in another.
So at best, this material use is limited ways, and thus requires combination with other materials which lose most of that big sounding number in any practical use.
Until they can 3D print microlattices made of graphene it's a no go.
Anyone else looked at the material and felt it creepy. All those holes. Uncanny...
The thing is, FIT's materials cannot bear 160,000 times their own weight. That's the newsworthy part.
" that's why when bone density decreases, fractures become more likely."
That means, dear Republicans, God sucks at maths.
The news is that they are printing with light. This means smaller processors. more data on a DVD and many more things. Not 'just' material that can carry 160.000 times its own weight.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Printing with light, AKA Stereolithography has been around for a long time. The news here is that they're printing feature sizes that are smaller than the wavelength of the light they are using. This involves using metamaterials with a negative index of refraction (among other things)
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" ... Using the right mathematically determined structures to distribute and direct the loads, the lighter structure can maintain its strength. This newly invented material is among the lightest in the world. It can easily withstand a load of more than 160,000 times its own weight ...
If it is possible to use the same math formula to greatly expand the scale of the structure (or scaffolding) into the macro-world that you and I live in, it would greatly lessen the building material needed to construct building, bridges, skyscrappers, and so on
So someone applied basic structural mechanics to 3d printing. How is that novel?
Space elevator cable first needs very high tensile strength just to hold it own weight (thats 22000 mile PLUS the counterweight portion extending outwards to counter the downward pull (some designs make that another duplicate cable going out that much further 22000 more miles).
Anyway, for the thing to work as a elevator the mechanism that goes up and down has to grip the cable and generate sufficient friction to move against gravity and then upwards (and to brake on the way down). That 'gripping' puts shear stress on the cable material as it squeezes the cable (requiring an armored surfacing which NOW has to exist on that long length ....more weight).
Strengthen that high tensile material itself ? Like the epoxy matrix around graphite fiber -- how much weight is that going to be that will greatly increase the weight of the entire cable (it adds little to the tensile up down strength)?? Thats now compression strength built up across the cable diameter, (actually across it to the opposite side) and intermeshed with the axial oriented cable tension element so it wont slip.
LOTS more weight to the whole thing (matrix might have to be many times the density/total weight of the linear element) which the tensile material will NOW have to hold all the weight of.
Lets not forget things like thermal stress on the materials, countermeasures against corrosion of all kinds, and added surge margins to compensate for irregular stress conditions
Another fun thing is because the weight hanging/pulling upwards varies at different points along the cable the strength required can vary, thus its thickness may also (to cut down its required weight somewhat)
They made an utrastrong spongebob squarepants
Wonder what the crush strength of it is compared to steel or concrete....could make for a very cool new sub ;)
Aircraft, Blimps, all kinds of construction applications.
Need more info.
That part is cool. Patentable perhaps. But if they apply for a patent on the idea of 'stretch dominated octet truss' - which is a simply a commonly understood triangular structure - that would be complete bullshit. It's a real cool thing to do, but it's a structure people have used for a very long time now, only using a new kind of 3d printer. Giving it a fancy name and 3d printing it does not make it new.
good grief! you're not even wrong.
the fact mercury is a liquid at room temperature is a chemical,
not a mechanical process. it is more related to the valence electrons than
the weight of the nucleus. of course they are related through the number of
protons. see: periodic table on wikipedia.
what the article should say is:
GIVEN a material and GIVEN a structure, it is true that density is prop to
stiffness. a 1mm thick copper tube is not as stiff as a 2mm thick copper tube.
Oboy. Do we finally have something that can make a big sphere strong enough and light enough that when pumped to a vacuum it will work as a lifting body?
Not to mention, strong enough to make a deep sea diving bell strong enough that it won't crush?
Same principle. Oh please ...
Normally, stiffness and strength declines with the density of any material; that's why when bone density decreases, fractures become more likely.
I can see what was meant, but OP actually got this backward. It should be "Normally, stiffness and strength increases with density; that's why when bone density decreases, fractures become more likely."
It's great that a comparison is made to the strength of the Eiffel Tower, but the reality is that we're talking about MICROstereolithorgraphy. If it printed a layer one micron in thickness, each layer needing an hour of production time, that's on the order of one century per inch.
This will be useful only where small parts are to be made that can withstand large forces: a miniature gyro perhaps rotating at insane speeds...
If it can be deployed in these applications (scintered fuselage/car frame) it will be pretty amazing.
but i still weigh more than a gram
>The news is that they are printing with light. This means smaller processors.
You don't know anything about how chips are made, do you?