Tailoring
of material architectures in three-dimensions enabled
by additive manufacturing (AM) offers the potential to realize bulk
materials with unprecedented properties optimized for location-specific
structural and/or functional requirements. Here we report tunable
energy absorption characteristics of architected honeycombs enabled
via material jetting AM. We realize spatially tailored 3D printed
honeycombs (guided by FE studies) by varying the cell wall thickness
gradient and evaluate experimentally and numerically the energy absorption
characteristics. The measured response of architected honeycombs characterized
by local buckling (wrinkling) and progressive failure reveals over
110% increase in specific energy absorption (SEA) with a concomitant
energy absorption efficiency of 65%. Design maps are presented that
demarcate the regime over which geometric tailoring mitigates deleterious
global buckling and collapse. Our analysis indicates that an energy
absorption efficiency as high as 90% can be achieved for architected
honeycombs, whereas the efficiency of competing microarchitected metamaterials
rarely exceeds 50%. The tailoring strategy introduced here is easily
realizable in a broad array of AM techniques, making it a viable candidate
for developing practical mechanical metamaterials.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.