Mechanical properties articles within Communications Materials

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    Additive manufacturing is known to create microstructures that cannot be achieved by conventional alloy processing. Here, heat treatment of an additively-manufactured aluminum alloy creates a hierarchical microstructure with a large number of precipitates, achieving high strength and ductility.

    • Fei Xiao
    • , Da Shu
    •  & David H. StJohn

  • Article
    | Open Access

    4D printing techniques enable the realization of smart materials whose shape or properties can change with time. Here, utilizing the anisotropic deformation of a combination of polymers and the distribution of microdefects formed during the 3D printing process, the authors realize a variety of shape-changing curved structures that can be used in drug delivery systems.

    • Vahid Moosabeiki
    • , Ebrahim Yarali
    •  & Amir A. Zadpoor

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The segregation of elements in superalloys is known to influence their mechanical properties. Here, atomic-scale imaging and theoretical calculations reveal a mechanism by which segregation causes a yield strength anomaly, strengthening the superalloy.

    • Andreas Bezold
    • , Jan Vollhüter
    •  & Steffen Neumeier

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Architected materials are known for high stiffness-to-weight behavior but bending-dominated lattices are of interest for their energy absorption performance. Here, an interwoven lattice with decoupled nodes shows significantly higher compliance at similar volume fractions to traditional lattices

    • Yash Mistry
    • , Oliver Weeger
    •  & Dhruv Bhate

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Kirigami, the art of deploying flat sheets to create three-dimensional structures, relies often on complex folding processes that hinder industrial applications. Here, the authors develop a folding-wall kirigami pattern that deploys easily under tension, demonstrating its strength, stiffness, energy absorption, and interlocking properties.

    • Tom Corrigan
    • , Patrick Fleming
    •  & Delony Langer-Anderson

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Nanocrystalline thin films fabricated by deposition often have high residual stresses, making them susceptible to defects. Here, stress distribution in tungsten-titanium nanocrystalline films are probed by experimental and simulation techniques, revealing the impact of solute concentration on residual stress.

    • Rahulkumar Jagdishbhai Sinojiya
    • , Priya Paulachan
    •  & Roland Brunner

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Modeling artificial nanostructures in terms of effective materials parameters is important for gaining physical insight into their behavior and facilitating their optimization. Here, an analytical effective medium theory for the heat capacity of holey phononic crystals is derived, revealing the effect of the emergent anisotropic elastic response of the metasolid.

    • Tuomas A. Puurtinen
    •  & Ilari J. Maasilta

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Pivotally interconnected polygons are capable of auxetic behavior, but have not been fully explored. Here, a design method is demonstrated based on the selective removal of rotational hinges in pivotally interconnected polygons with even-numbered modules, leading to fully-deployable structures.

    • Ehsan Jalali
    • , Hadi Soltanizadeh
    •  & Pooya Sareh

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Rare-earth hexaborides are of interest for their pressure-induced phase transformations, but further understanding is needed regarding their failure mechanisms. Here, nanoindentation of EuB6 causes dislocation-mediated shear band formation, driven by the breaking of boron-boron bonds.

    • Rajamallu Karre
    • , Yidi Shen
    •  & Kolan Madhav Reddy

  • Article
    | Open Access

    There is an ongoing need to increase the operating temperature of jet engines, requiring new high-temperature materials. Here, local phase transformations at superlattice stacking faults contribute to a three times improvement in creep strength in a Ni-based superalloy.

    • Timothy M. Smith
    • , Nikolai A. Zarkevich
    •  & Michael J. Mills

  • Article
    | Open Access

    4D metamaterials offer the additional functionality of being responsive to external stimuli. Here, a metamaterial-based soft robot is composed of bilayer plates that can rotate and translate in response to thermal stimuli, allowing controlled motion.

    • Qingxiang Ji
    • , Johnny Moughames
    •  & Muamer Kadic

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Load partitioning to grains during deformation of a polycrystalline material is affected by the presence of twins. Here, synchrotron diffraction is used to study 1300 twin-parent grains, revealing that stress is higher in twins than in the parent grain during the early stages of plastic deformation.

    • Karim Louca
    • , Hamidreza Abdolvand
    •  & Jonathan Wright

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Chiral mechanical metamaterials enable unusual effects, such as coupling between strain and twist. Here, manufactured microstructured samples with >105 chiral unit cells exhibit large characteristic lengths, in agreement with analytical and numerical modelling and micropolar continuum elasticity.

    • Tobias Frenzel
    • , Vincent Hahn
    •  & Martin Wegener

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The discovery of new alloys with desirable mechanical properties is traditionally a time consuming process. Here, machine learning is applied to the discovery of aluminum alloys, revealing a compositionally-lean alloy with an ultimate tensile strength of 952 MPa and 6.3% elongation.

    • Jiaheng Li
    • , Yingbo Zhang
    •  & Hui Chen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Robotic devices that can actuate at high speeds are challenging to achieve. Here, soft robotic devices driven by low magnetic fields show large deformations at frequencies of up to 100 Hz and are capable of a range of motions, including cross-clapping, walking, swimming and closing around a living fly.

    • Xu Wang
    • , Guoyong Mao
    •  & Denys Makarov

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