MIT builds 'a little disorder' into materials: leaf-vein network structures take hits better than tidy honeycombs ↗
For years, synthetic metamaterials have been made by repeating the same tiny unit, like tiles on a floor. On November 11, a team from MIT and Northeastern University described a different approach, in an open-access Nature paper: internal beams of many sizes, connected like the veins in a leaf or a dragonfly wing. Their 3D-printed samples held up better under compression and impact than conventional lattice or honeycomb designs, and could cushion a fragile object at the center, similar to a pomelo's rind. The work is still in the lab.