A new metal structure developed by U.S. scientists, so light it dramatically cuts down drag and improves fuel efficiency one hundredfold, could find its way into vehicles someday.
Claiming it is 100 times lighter than Styrofoam, an innovative new material called a micro-lattice has been developed by the California Institute of Technology, HRL Laboratories, based in Malibu, CA, and the University of California-Irvine.
Based on a crisscross lattice structure on a micro-scale, the material is made up of a series of tiny, hollow nickel-phosphorous tubes angled to connect at nodes, which form repeating, asterisk-like unit cells in three dimensions.
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