High-temperature nanoarchitected materials with unique thermo-mechanical properties

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The recent evolution of novel additive manufacturing approaches with resolutions down to the nanoscale enables to fabricate lightweight yet high-strength micro/nano-architected lattice materials. By miniaturizing optimally designed cellular architectures strong size-dependent material strengthening effects can be exploited, facilitating outstanding mechanical properties at low density. To this point such lattice materials have only been characterized and optimized with respect to their mechanical behavior. Multifunctionality, the actual key benefit of cellular structures in a classical sense, such as in the case of load-bearing and at the same time insulating sandwich panels, has not yet been addressed.The objective of this research project is to create multifunctional high-temperature nanoarchitected cellular materials with unique combinations of ultra-low thermal conductivity and high specific mechanical properties. The thermal insulation capacity and the mechanical strength will be characterized experimentally as well as by finite element simulations and are optimized through intelligent material and topological design.In the thermal conductivity size-effects occur as well, at the nanoscale it decreases with decreasing dimensions and was reported to be about one order of magnitude lower than the respective bulk values in the size range below 100 nm. Nanolattice materials, whose microscopic individual struts can be manufactured with material thicknesses of 10 nm, therefore are expected to have an extremely low thermal conductivity and are likely to serve as superior, lightweight thermal insulators, while achieving outstanding mechanical properties. This combination of high specific strength and low thermal conductivity is expected to be superior to that of any currently existing material.Such materials that are simultaneously lightweight, mechanically robust and thermally insulating are desirable for various applications such as in gas turbine engines and aerospace, where the design of load-bearing structures that can tolerate high temperatures, while insulating the under-structure, can results in significant increases in efficiency, weight saving and higher structural robustness.