CARBON-FIBER EPOXY HONEYCOMBS EMULATE THE PERFORMANCE OF BALSA WOOD

Engineers at Harvard Develop Lightweight Cellular Composites Using 3D Printing and New Resin Inks

Engineers at Harvard, US, have developed a way to use new resin inks and 3D printing to create lightweight cellular composites that mimic balsa wood. The lightweight balsa wood is prized for its remarkable mechanical properties for its weight and is an essential component in turbine blade manufacture. But Balsa wood is expensive and not quite up to the increasing demands being placed on it, by engineers seeking greater precision in the performance of turbine blades.

To this end, engineers at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) have created cellular composite materials of unrivaled light weight and stiffness. They used a combination of fiber-reinforced epoxy-based thermosetting resins and 3D printing techniques to create the new composite materials, which outperform balsa and even the best commercially available 3D-printed polymers.