Micro-architectured materials: past, present and future

Micro-architectured materials offer the opportunity of obtaining unique combinations of material properties. First, a historical perspective is given to the expansion of material property space by the introduction of new alloys and new microstructures. Principles of design of micro-architecture are then given and the role of nodal connectivity is emphasized for monoscale and multi-scale microstructures. The stiffness, strength and damage tolerance of lattice materials are reviewed and compared with those of fully dense solids. It is demonstrated that micro-architectured materials are able to occupy regions of material property space (such as high stiffness, strength and fracture toughness at low density) that…