Deformation (meteorology)

Composite number

Biomedical engineering

Materials science

Lamellar structure

Thermodynamics

Physics

Nanotechnology

3d printed

Microstructure

Composite material

Medicine

Ballistic impact

Deformation mechanism

Nanoscopic scale

Hypervelocity

Small

Lightweight materials with high ballistic impact resistance and load‐bearing capabilities are regarded as a holy grail in materials design. Nature builds these complementary properties into materials using soft organic materials with optimized, complex geometries. Here, the compressive deformation and ballistic impact properties of three different 3D printed polymer structures, named tubulanes, are reported, which are the architectural analogues of cross‐linked carbon nanotubes. The results show that macroscopic tubulanes are remarkable high load‐bearing, hypervelocity impact‐resistant lightweight structures. They exhibit a lamellar deformation mechanism, arising from the tubulane ordered pore structure, manifested across multiple length scales from nano to macro dimensions. This approach of using complex geometries inspired by atomic and nanoscale models to generate macroscale printed structures allows innovative morphological engineering of materials with tunable mechanical responses.

3D Printed Tubulanes as Lightweight Hypervelocity Impact Resistant Structures