New Materials are Stiff but can Absorb Vibrations

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A buckled material that is both stiff and good at absorbing vibrations. Credit: D. Dykstra et al.

Key points:

  • Researchers have created a metamaterial that is both stuff and good at absorbing vibrations.
  • The key to the unique discovery is the use of materials that buckle, like thin metal sheets.
  • The metamaterials could be used in aerospace, automotive, microscopy, nanolithography and more.

A team of researchers from the University of Amsterdam has found a way to create materials that are stiff, but still good at absorbing vibrations—and equally important, very lightweight.

Usually, the two characterizations of a material are mutually exclusive: something is either stiff, or it can absorb vibrations well—but rarely both. Now, however, scientists discovered that the trick to creating a metamaterial with both properties is to use materials that buckle, like thin metal sheets.

“Buckled sheets become great absorbers of vibrations when we put them together in a clever way. But at the same time, they preserve a lot of the stiffness of the material they are made out of,” said lead author David Dykstra. “Moreover, the sheets do not need to be very thick so the material can be kept relatively light.”

In their study, the researchers thoroughly investigated the properties of the buckled materials, and found that they all showed this combination of stiffness and ability to dissipate vibrations.

As known materials do not have this desired combination of properties, the new lab-made materials have a wide range of potential applications across different scales. Possible uses range from meter-sized—for aerospace, automotive and other civil applications—to the microscale, inclusive of microscopes and nanolithography.

“Humans like to build things—small things and big things—and we almost always want these structures to be light. If that can be done with materials that are both stiff and good at shock-absorbing, many existing designs can be improved and many new designs become possible,” said Dykstra. “There really is no end to the possible applications.”

 

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