A new study recently presented that athletes, motorists, and soldiers could lead safer lives through 'nanocages,' as a result of a new process that could lead to a more effective and reusable shield from shock and impact, explosion, and vibration.
A Phys.org report said that pressurized insertion of aqueous solutions into the so-called water-repellent nanoporous materials like zeolites and metal-organic frameworks could help develop high-performance energy that absorbs systems.
An international team of researchers experimented with hydrothermally stable zeolitic imidazolate frameworks or ZIFs with a 'hydrophobic cage-like molecular structure, searching for such systems are extraordinarily effective energy absorbers at truthful, high-rate loading settings, and this phenomenon is linked to clustering of water, as well as mobility in nanocages.
Nanoscale Mechanism
Study authors from the Universities of Birmingham and Oxford, along with Ghent University Belgium, and their findings from research entitled, High-rate nanofluidic energy absorption in porous zeolitic frameworks, published in Nature Materials.
According to Lecturer in Engineering, Dr. Yueting Sun, at the University of Birmingham, rubber is commonly used for shock absorption these days, although, the process they discovered is creating a material that can absorb more mechanical energy for each gram with excellent reusability because of its extraordinary nanoscale mechanism.
The material, Sun explained, has a great impact on vehicle crash safety for both the motorists and pedestrians, military-armored automobiles and infrastructures, as well as protection for the human body.
Specifically, the lecturer added, police and solider could benefit from better bomb suits and body armor. More so, athletes might put on more effective knee pads, shoe insoles and helmets as the material is liquid-like, not to mention, flexible to wear.
Reusable Material
The reusability of the said material, which, according to the said research, is stemming from the spontaneous liquid extrusion, enables the material as well, to be appropriate for damping purposes.
Meaning, it could be used for the creation of vehicles with lesser noise and vibration, not to mention better ride comfort and convenience.
In addition, the material could be incorporated as well, into machinery, to lessen hazardous noise and vibration, reducing maintenance costs.
It could also be applied for the reduction of the susceptibility to earthquakes, of buildings and bridges. Researchers specified in their work that the present state-of-the-art materials for energy absorption depend on processes like extensive "plastic deformation, cell buckling, and viscoelastic dissipation."
These make it quite difficult to develop or devise materials that can offer effective protection from multiple impacts.
Earlier Shock Protection Invention
In 2019, Worcester Polytechnic Institute reported, its aerospace engineer conducted a wave motion study to one day develop a bulletproof vest that, not just would sense the speed, angle of approach, and an incoming bullet's size, but also, the materials inside it would instantly change properties to provide greater shock shield, at the exact point of impact.
These materials could be utilized in protective gear, and to develop covers for satellites, buildings, as well as underwater missile silos.
The WPI said this then pioneering work was being funded by a five-year, half-a-million-dollar Faculty Early Career Development Program or CAREER award from the National Science Foundation.
A related report is shown on Audiopedia's YouTube video below:
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