Mechanical properties of 3D printed macroscopic models of schwarzites

• Published in: Nano select Vol. 3; no. 2; pp. 450 - 458
• Main Authors: Gaal, Vladimir, Felix, Levi C., Woellner, Cristiano F., Galvao, Douglas S., Tiwary, Chandra Sekhar, d'Ávila, Marcos Akira, Rodrigues, Varlei
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Weinheim John Wiley & Sons, Inc 01.02.2022; Wiley-VCH
• Subjects: 3-D printers; additive manufacturing; Allotropy; Boundary conditions; Carbon; Deformation mechanisms; Macroscopic models; Materials science; Mechanical properties; Molecular dynamics; Residual stress; Schwarzite; Simulation; Stress-strain curves; Three dimensional models; Three dimensional printing; triply periodic minimal surfaces
• ISSN: 2688-4011; 2688-4011
• DOI: 10.1002/nano.202100147

Additive manufacturing allows to produce parts with complex geometries is an essential tool in materials science. Schwarzites is a class of carbon allotropes with interesting mechanical properties. However, most of the schwarzite studies are theoretical until now because the synthesis of large schwarzite fragments remains elusive. In this work, we have carried out molecular dynamics simulations, and extensive experimental tests of 3D printed schwarzites to study their mechanical behavior. Our results show that this behavior does not strongly depend on printed used material, model size, or the number of structural unit cells. We also observed a strong correlation between the stress‐strain curves of 3D printed and the ones obtained from fully atomistic molecular dynamics simulations. Both results show the same trends for almost all investigated schwarzites, suggesting that topological features and scale‐size invariant dominate some deformation mechanisms. Our results further validate the use of atomic models of materials with complex geometries that are impractical or very difficult to synthesize, translated into macro models that can be 3D printed, and offer an innovative engineered approach to produce new materials with tunable mechanical behavior. Schwarzites are carbon‐based materials with complex topology, presenting unique properties, but not yet produced. Their mechanical behavior has been studied using macroscopy 3D printed parts. We investigated this methodology and observed a strong correlation between 3D parts and simulated stress‐strain curves, independently of print parameters and scales. This is an innovative way to study new materials with tunable mechanical behavior.