Fig. 1: Design and manufacture of soft 3D network materials.
From: Soft three-dimensional network materials with rational bio-mimetic designs
a Conceptual illustration of the microstructure design for soft 3D network materials with three different lattice topologies (from left to right: cubic, octahedral, and octet). The filamentary microstructure with a 3D helical configuration serves as the building block that connects the lattice nodes. b Optical images of the specimens fabricated using the polyjet 3D printing technique, according to the designs in a. Each specimen consists of 8 × 8 × 8 unit cells. c Schematic illustration of the geometric parameters associated with the 3D helical microstructure. d0, R0, N0, p0, and pj denote the diameter of the fiber, the radius of the helix, the number of the coil, the pitch, and the joint length, respectively. d Optical images of a representative soft 3D network structure before and after large levels of deformations (stretching, compression, bending, and twisting). This structure is composed of 4 × 4 × 10 unit cells, each with an octahedral lattice topology. Scale bars, 5 mm in b and d.
