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Additive Manufacturing of Polymer-Based Materials and Lightweight Structures, 2nd Edition

A special issue of Polymers (ISSN 2073-4360). This special issue belongs to the section "Polymer Composites and Nanocomposites".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 December 2025 | Viewed by 809

Special Issue Editor

School of Transportation and Logistics Engineering, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan 430070, China
Interests: additive manufacturing; continuous carbon-fiber-reinforced composites; lightweight design; porous structures; fatigue
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Following the success of our previous Special Issue of Polymers (https://www.mdpi.com/journal/polymers/special_issues/H46C2T3618), we are delighted to launch a second edition, now entitled “Additive Manufacturing of Polymer-Based Materials and Lightweight Structures, 2nd Edition”.

The demand for lightweight materials in the fields of transportation, biomedicine, aerospace, etc., is fueling the rapid development of the technologies used to manufacture polymers, continuous carbon-fiber-reinforced composites, and lightweight structures such as honeycomb lattices.

Additive manufacturing (AM) technology uses the gradual accumulation of materials to manufacture physical parts, making it a "bottom-up" manufacturing method. Due to the "dimensionality reduction manufacturing" used in its slicing process, the technology overcomes many of the limitations of traditional processing methods. In recent years, the use of additive technology to prepare polymer-based materials and lightweight structures has been accepted by the industry.

This Special Issue will report on the most recent progress made in various aspects of additively manufactured polymer-based materials and lightweight structures, such as innovative design principles and methods for lightweight structures, new AM processes for polymer-based materials, functional structures realized using polymer-based materials, and lightweight structures. The aim of this Special Issue is to gather together recent findings from the research community to create a forum in which key challenges and opportunities can be identified, state-of-the-art research can be shared, and advancements in research related to additively manufactured polymer-based materials and lightweight structures can be promoted. Both original research and review works are welcome to be submitted to this Special Issue.

Potential topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Emerging and innovative AM technologies for polymer-based materials and lightweight structures;
  • Design and optimization of novel polymer-based materials and lightweight structures for AM;
  • Microstructure and property characterization of additively manufactured lightweight materials and structures;
  • Simulation analysis of the additive manufacturing process and performances of polymer-based materials and lightweight structures;
  • Research into the application of lightweight additive manufacturing materials such as continuous carbon-fiber-reinforced composites, polymers, etc.;
  • Research into the application of lightweight additive manufacturing structures such as biomimetic structures, biological structures, metastructures, etc.;
  • Four-dimensional printing of lightweight materials and structures to achieve controlled changes in shape, performance, and function.

Dr. Lei Yang
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Polymers is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • additive manufacturing
  • lightweight structures
  • polymers
  • continuous carbon-fiber-reinforced composites
  • functional design

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

15 pages, 2312 KB  
Article
Impact Absorption Behaviour of 3D-Printed Lattice Structures for Sportswear Applications
by Mei-ki Chan, Sik-cheung Hung, Kit-lun Yick, Yue Sun, Joanne Yip and Sun-pui Ng
Polymers 2025, 17(19), 2611; https://doi.org/10.3390/polym17192611 - 26 Sep 2025
Viewed by 699
Abstract
Lattice structures have been widely studied in various fields due to their lightweight and high-energy absorption capabilities. In this study, we propose the use of lattice structures in the design of sports protective equipment for contact sports athletes. A total of six specimens [...] Read more.
Lattice structures have been widely studied in various fields due to their lightweight and high-energy absorption capabilities. In this study, we propose the use of lattice structures in the design of sports protective equipment for contact sports athletes. A total of six specimens were additively manufactured either with a bending-dominated rhombic dodecahedron (RD) structure or stretch-dominated re-entrant (RE) structure. Elastic resin was used to investigate the specimens’ compressive strength and energy absorption, impact reduction, and flexural properties in comparison with those of conventional foam and rigid polyethylene (PU). Despite having a lower relative density, the RE structure exhibits greater stiffness, showing up to 40% greater hardness and averaging 30.5% higher bending rigidity compared with the RD structure. However, it unexpectedly shows less stability and strength under uniaxial loading, which is 3 to 6 times weaker when compared with the non-auxetic RD structure. Although conventional PU has higher loading than 3D-printed lattices, the lattice shows excellent bendability, which is only 1.5 to 3 times stiffer than that of foam. The 3D-printed lattice in this study shows an optimal improvement of 43% in terms of impact absorption compared with foam and a 2.3% improvement compared with PU. Amongst the six different unit cell dimensions and structures studied, the RD lattice with a cell size of 5 mm is the most promising candidate; it has superior elasticity, compressive strength, and impact resistance performance whether it is under low- or high-impact conditions. The findings of this study provide a basis for the development of 3D-printed lattice sports protective chest equipment, which is more comfortable and offers improved protection for contact sports players. Full article
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