Herein, we aim to develop a facile
method for the fabrication of
mechanical metamaterials from templated polymerization of thermosets
including phenolic and epoxy resins using self-assembled block copolymer,
polystyrene–polydimethylsiloxane with tripod network (gyroid),
and tetrapod network (diamond) structures, as templates. Nanoindentation
studies on the nanonetwork thermosets fabricated reveal enhanced energy
dissipation from intrinsic brittle thermosets due to the deliberate
structuring; the calculated energy dissipation for gyroid phenolic
resins is 0.23 nJ whereas the one with diamond structure gives a value
of 0.33 nJ. Consistently, the gyroid-structured epoxy gives a high
energy dissipation value of 0.57 nJ, and the one with diamond structure
could reach 0.78 nJ. These enhanced properties are attributed to the
isotropic periodicity of the nanonetwork texture with plastic deformation,
and the higher number of struts in the tetrapod diamond network in
contrast to tripod gyroid, as confirmed by the finite element analysis.
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