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Ultra-low-density digitally architected carbon with a strutted tube-in-tube structure

Nature Materials volume 20, pages 1498–1505 (2021)Cite this article

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Abstract

Porous materials with engineered stretching-dominated lattice designs, which offer attractive mechanical properties with ultra-light weight and large surface area for wide-ranging applications, have recently achieved near-ideal linear scaling between stiffness and density. Here, rather than optimizing the microlattice topology, we explore a different approach to strengthen low-density structural materials by designing tube-in-tube beam structures. We develop a process to transform fully dense, three-dimensional printed polymeric beams into graphitic carbon hollow tube-in-tube sandwich morphologies, where, similar to grass stems, the inner and outer tubes are connected through a network of struts. Compression tests and computational modelling show that this change in beam morphology dramatically slows down the decrease in stiffness with decreasing density. In situ pillar compression experiments further demonstrate large deformation recovery after 30–50% compression and high specific damping merit index. Our strutted tube-in-tube design opens up the space and realizes highly desirable high modulus–low density and high modulus–high damping material structures.

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Fig. 1: 3D printing and post processing to convert solid polymeric beams into STinT carbon structures.
Fig. 2: Young’s modulus of the STinT carbon structures and comparison with other materials.
Fig. 3: Finite element modelling.
Fig. 4: In situ SEM compression tests with varying sample aspect ratios and architectures.
Fig. 5: Specific damping merit index (E0.5η/ρ) versus specific modulus (E/ρ).

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Data availability

The authors declare that the data supporting the findings of this study are available within the paper and its supplementary information files. Source data are provided with this paper.

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Acknowledgements

We thank J.-B. Forien, M. A. Worsley, C. Zhu and X. Zheng for helpful discussions. The work was performed under the auspices of the US Department of Energy by LLNL under contract no. DE-AC52-07NA27344. The project was supported by the Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) programme of LLNL (15-ERD-019) (to J.B.). L.L. and P.R.O. would like to acknowledge financial support from the Dutch Polymer Institute (DPI) through project no. 775. Y.M.W. was partially supported by NSF DMR-2104933.

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Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Jianchao Ye, Ling Liu.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Materials Science Division, Physics and Life Sciences Directorate, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, CA, USA

    Jianchao Ye, James Oakdale, Thomas Voisin, John D. Roehling, Maira R. Cerón, Leonardus Bimo Bayu Aji, Monika M. Biener, Y. Morris Wang & Juergen Biener

  2. Micromechanics of Materials, Zernike Institute for Advanced Materials, University of Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands

    Ling Liu, Jip van Ham & Patrick R. Onck

  3. Bruker, Minneapolis, MN, USA

    Joseph Lefebvre & Sanjit Bhowmick

  4. Materials Engineering Division, Engineering Directorate, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, CA, USA

    William L. Smith

  5. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    Y. Morris Wang

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Contributions

J.B., J.Y. and P.R.O. conceived and guided the research. J.O. and W.L.S. designed and printed log-pile structures. J.Y. performed Ni electroless plating and carbon conversion. M.M.B. assisted in post processing. J.Y. performed mechanical testing and characterizations. J.L., S.B. and J.Y. conducted in situ pillar compression tests. T.V. and J.D.R. conducted TEM and tomography analysis. M.R.C. ran the TGA analysis. L.B.B.A. carried out ERDA analysis. L.L., P.R.O. and J.v.H. conducted finite element analysis. J.Y., L.L., J.B. and P.R.O. drafted the manuscript. Y.M.W. suggested extra mechanical analysis and manuscript revisions. All authors commented on the drafts.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Jianchao Ye, Patrick R. Onck or Juergen Biener.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

Additional information

Peer review information Nature Materials thanks Xiaoyan Li and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary Discussions, Figs. 1–23 and Tables 1–5.

Supplementary Video 1

STEM images of a STinT carbon beam with tilting angles from −71° to 71° with 2° steps.

Supplementary Video 2

TEM images of a STinT carbon beam with tilting angles from −67° to 68° with 3° steps.

Supplementary Video 3

A 3D reconstruction of a STinT carbon beam using TEM tomography.

Supplementary Video 4

In situ SEM compression on a 1:1 aspect ratio FCT STinT carbon pillar with pitch size of 10 μm.

Supplementary Video 5

Zoomed-in in situ SEM compression on a 1:1 aspect ratio SC STinT carbon pillar with pitch size of 10 μm.

Supplementary Video 6

In situ SEM flat-punch indent near edge of a SC STinT carbon plate with pitch size of 5 μm.

Supplementary Video 7

In situ SEM compression up to 10% strain on a 2.5:1 aspect ratio SC STinT carbon pillar with pitch size of 10 μm.

Supplementary Video 8

In situ SEM compression up to 30% strain on a 2.5:1 aspect ratio SC STinT carbon pillar with pitch size of 10 μm.

Supplementary Video 9

In situ SEM compression up to 50% strain on a 2.5:1 aspect ratio SC STinT carbon pillar with pitch size of 10 μm.

Source data

Source Data Fig. 1

Raman spectra of STinT carbons.

Source Data Fig. 2

Modulus versus density plots.

Source Data Fig. 3

Raw data discussing relationships of Ni-layer thickness, STinT carbon density, modulus and mass ratio.

Source Data Fig. 4

Raw data of engineering stress–strain curves.

Source Data Fig. 5

Raw data of damping properties from our STinT carbon and references.

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Ye, J., Liu, L., Oakdale, J. et al. Ultra-low-density digitally architected carbon with a strutted tube-in-tube structure. Nat. Mater. 20, 1498–1505 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-021-01125-w

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