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Title is very click-bait. The MIT News article it links to is much more informative: http://news.mit.edu/2017/3-d-graphene-strongest-lightest-materials-0106 htt

Title is very click-bait. The MIT News article it links to is much more informative: http://news.mit.edu/2017/3-d-graphene-strongest-lightest-materials-0106 http://news.mit.edu/2017/3-d-graphene-strongest-lightest-mat...

gene-h 10y ago
So they show that a graphene gyroid structure could be quite strong compressively. Now, the challenge is actually make such a structure. Making a template for graphene to grow on like this is bound to be quite challenging, minimizing the amount of defects in such structure even more so!
- rsfern 10y ago
  They have a pretty plausible-sounding (I am not an aerogels expert) synthesis route based on cyclic annealing of graphene flakes, and they have molecular dynamics calculations to back it up. In the open access research paper [0] there's some discussion of the defects that form in the MD simulations, so that's baked into the mechanical property calculations to some extent... I agree that actually synthesizing this stuff still remains a big challenge, but at this point I think it's just engineering. [0] http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/3/1/e1601536.full http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/3/1/e1601536.full
- ChuckMcM 10y ago
  Yes that was what I got out of it, and at the same time I am totally updating the Slicer infill pattern on my 3D printer to make stronger structures :-)
  - gene-h 10y ago
    While this is worth trying for the sheer coolness of it, I'm a bit skeptical about how it will perform. For FDM things are much weaker in the Z-direction than they are in the x-y plane.
    - ChuckMcM 10y ago
      Exactly correct, the Z direction is a challenge in FDM printing. I built some "strength tester" forms (basically thinks I could crush or pull apart or bend) to understand what sort of structural stability could be expected out of a given filament and the process in general.

gene-h 10y ago

So they show that a graphene gyroid structure could be quite strong compressively. Now, the challenge is actually make such a structure. Making a template for graphene to grow on like this is bound to be quite challenging, minimizing the amount of defects in such structure even more so!

rsfern 10y ago
They have a pretty plausible-sounding (I am not an aerogels expert) synthesis route based on cyclic annealing of graphene flakes, and they have molecular dynamics calculations to back it up. In the open access research paper [0] there's some discussion of the defects that form in the MD simulations, so that's baked into the mechanical property calculations to some extent... I agree that actually synthesizing this stuff still remains a big challenge, but at this point I think it's just engineering. [0] http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/3/1/e1601536.full http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/3/1/e1601536.full
ChuckMcM 10y ago
Yes that was what I got out of it, and at the same time I am totally updating the Slicer infill pattern on my 3D printer to make stronger structures :-)
- gene-h 10y ago
  While this is worth trying for the sheer coolness of it, I'm a bit skeptical about how it will perform. For FDM things are much weaker in the Z-direction than they are in the x-y plane.
  - ChuckMcM 10y ago
    Exactly correct, the Z direction is a challenge in FDM printing. I built some "strength tester" forms (basically thinks I could crush or pull apart or bend) to understand what sort of structural stability could be expected out of a given filament and the process in general.