Architectured hierarchical porous metals enabled by additive manufacturing

ABSTRACT

Architectured hierarchical porous materials exist widely in nature. Inspired by their unique mechanical and functional responses, extensive efforts have been made to develop architectured hierarchical porous metallic materials for specific industrial applications where fast mass transport and specific surface area are both critical, such as energy storage and catalysis. More specifically, the rapid development of additive manufacturing (AM) technologies has enabled the design and fabrication of a wide variety of architectured hierarchical porous metals in recent years. This review discusses the developments to date of AM-enabled hierarchical porous metals with or without the combination of other manufacturing processes. AM opens avenues for the creation of unprecedented hierarchical porous metals with novel properties or functionalities.

KEYWORDS:

• Architecturedmetals
• hierarchical porous
• hybrid lattice
• additive manufacturing

Acknowledgement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, TS, upon reasonable request.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This project was funded by the Australian Research Council (ARC) through DP200102666.

Notes on contributors

Tingting Song

Tingting Song, PhD, is a research fellow working at Centre for Additive Manufacturing, School of Engineering, RMIT University. She completed her PhD on Materials and Manufacturing Engineering at RMIT in 2016. Her research has been focusing on advanced manufacturing of functional porous metallic materials including dealloying and additive manufacturing. To 2021, she has published 40 papers in these areas including in Acta Materialia, Corrosion Science and Additive Manufacturing. 

Xuezhe Zhang

Xuezhe Zhang, PhD, is a research fellow working at State Key Laboratory of Porous Metal Materials, Northwest Institute for Nonferrous Metal Research, China. She obtained her PhD on Materials and Manufacturing at Northeastern University, China in 2019. Her research has been focusing on design and manufacture of Ti-6Al-4V lattices by selective electron beam melting (SEBM).

Haozhang Zhong

Haozhang Zhong, PhD, is a research fellow working at Shanghai Jiaotong University (SJTU), China. He completed his PhD on Materials and Manufacturing Engineering at SJTU in 2021. His research topic includes the metallurgical phase transformation in additively manufactured metal alloys and topological design of metal lattices for additive manufacturing.

Milan Brandt

Milan Brandt, PhD, is a Distinguished Professor in Advanced Manufacturing in the School of Engineering, Director RMIT Centre for Additive Manufacturing, RMIT University, Melbourne Australia. He is the recipient of a number of awards including the 2020 Arthur L. Schawlow Award and has also commercialized the results of his research through the companies he has helped establish. 

M. Qian

Ma Qian, PhD, is a Distinguished Professor of the School of Engineering at RMIT University Melbourne, Australia. His current research interests include (i) metal additive manufacturing, (ii) powder metallurgy of light alloys, (iii) solidification processing, (iv) surface engineering for medical applications, (v) metallic biomaterials, and (vi) high entropy alloys