Light and stiff: materials of the future

According a report on gizmag.com, research organisations are developing materials so strong and ultra-lightweight that they have the capacity to one day revolutionise automotive designs.

A team of researchers from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) have developed new ultra-lightweight materials that are as light as aerogel – a synthetic material derived from a gel that's often called "frozen smoke" -- but 10,000 times stiffer.

The new materials developed by the MIT/LLNL team aren't aerogels (pictured), which will shatter if pressed hard enough, but are instead metamaterials -- artificial materials with properties that aren't found in nature. Gizmag says that the strength of the new materials comes from their geometric structure, not their chemical composition.

The new materials were made using projection micro-stereolithography, which is a highly developed process which uses a similar technique to creating microchips. The tests have been positive: the same density as aerogel, but immeasurably stiffer.

"These lightweight materials can withstand a load of at least 160,000 times their own weight," LLNL Engineer Xiaoyu Zheng was quoted as saying on Gizmag.com. "The key to this ultrahigh stiffness is that all the micro-structural elements in this material are designed to be over constrained and do not bend under applied load.”

Down the track, parts and components could be used for motor cars, motorcycles and other types of vehicles.