Flexure resistant 3D printed zeolite-inspired structures

RS Ambekar and EF Oliveira and B Kushwaha and V Pal and PM Ajayan and AK Roy and DS Galvao and CS Tiwary, ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING, 47, 102297 (2021).

DOI: 10.1016/j.addma.2021.102297

Polymer-based materials exhibit a good combination of strength and ductility but limited flexural strength. Here we demonstrate a family of new zeolite templated interconnected carbon nanotubes like porous networks with unique topologies with enhanced load-bearing and energy- absorbing capabilities. The structures were initially obtained from fully atomistic molecular dynamics simulations and then 3D printed using polylactide serving as an upscaled molecular model. All the structures show multi-fold enhancement in compression and flexural strength as compared to their solid counterparts. The 3D printed structure has 575.41 MPa compressive Young's modulus and 318.87 MPa flexural modulus. The mechanical of the atomic models and 3D printed structures show some scale-independent (in a sense that atomic and macro models show similar behavior) features due to similar topological features and deformation conditions.

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