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Vault Structured Metal

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Bionic vault-structuring is a method to generate a three-dimensional pattern in metallic sheets. Thanks to the controlled self-organization arrangement, a minimum of plastic deformation is required for forming the patterns. Because of their high rigidity, vault-structured, hexagonally or three-dimensional facet-structured components can be produced in stainless steel with greatly reduced wall thickness.

Vault-structured materials, even if thin and lightweight, are highly resistant to bending and to stress caused by thermal expansion, and they have other advantageous properties with application potential for lightweight structures. When flow bypasses three-dimensional profiled surfaces, there is a higher convective heat and mass-transfer coefficient compared to smooth surfaces.