Additively Manufactured Dual-Faced Structured Fabric for Shape-Adaptive Protection

Yuanyuan Tian; Kaijuan Chen; Han Zheng; Devesh R Kripalani; Zhuohong Zeng; Asker Jarlöv; Jiayao Chen; Lichun Bai; Adrian Ong; Hejun Du; Guozheng Kang; Qihong Fang; Lihua Zhao; H Jerry Qi; Yifan Wang; Kun Zhou

doi:10.1002/advs.202301567

Additively Manufactured Dual-Faced Structured Fabric for Shape-Adaptive Protection

Adv Sci (Weinh). 2023 Jul;10(21):e2301567. doi: 10.1002/advs.202301567. Epub 2023 May 10.

Authors

Yuanyuan Tian^{1

2

3}, Kaijuan Chen¹, Han Zheng², Devesh R Kripalani², Zhuohong Zeng², Asker Jarlöv², Jiayao Chen^{1

2}, Lichun Bai⁴, Adrian Ong¹, Hejun Du¹, Guozheng Kang⁵, Qihong Fang³, Lihua Zhao^{1

6}, H Jerry Qi⁷, Yifan Wang², Kun Zhou^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ HP-NTU Digital Manufacturing Corporate Lab, Nanyang Technological University, 50 Nanyang Avenue, Singapore, 639798, Singapore.
² Singapore Centre for 3D Printing, School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, 50 Nanyang Avenue, Singapore, 639798, Singapore.
³ State Key Laboratory of Advanced Design and Manufacturing for Vehicle Body, Hunan University, Changsha, Hunan, 410082, China.
⁴ School of Traffic and Transportation Engineering, Central South University, Changsha, Hunan, 410083, China.
⁵ School of Mechanics and Aerospace Engineering, Southwest Jiaotong University, Chengdu, Sichuan, 610031, China.
⁶ 3D Lab, HP Labs, HP Inc., Palo Alto, CA, 94304, USA.
⁷ The George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, 30332, USA.

Abstract

Fabric-based materials have demonstrated promise for high-performance wearable applications but are currently restricted by their deficient mechanical properties. Here, this work leverages the design freedom offered by additive manufacturing and a novel interlocking pattern to for the first time fabricate a dual-faced chain mail structure consisting of 3D re-entrant unit cells. The flexible structured fabric demonstrates high specific energy absorption and specific strength of up to 1530 J kg^-1 and 5900 Nm kg^-1 , respectively, together with an excellent recovery ratio of ≈80%, thereby overcoming the strength-recoverability trade-off. The designed dual-faced structured fabric compares favorably against a wide range of materials proposed for wearable applications, attributed to the synergetic strengthening of the energy-absorbing re-entrant unit cells and their unique topological interlocking. This work advocates the combined design of energy-absorbing unit cells and their interlocking to extend the application prospects of fabric-based materials to shape-adaptive protection.

Keywords: additive manufacturing; deformation recovery; dual-faced structured fabric; energy absorption; shape-adaptive protection.

Abstract

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