Energy-absorbing porous materials: Bioinspired architecture and fabrication

Energy-absorbing materials are widely used in transportations, sports, and the military applications. Particularly, porous materials, including natural and artificial materials, have attracted tremendous attentions due to their light weight and excellent energy absorption capability. This review summarizes the recent progresses in the natural and artificial energy-absorbing porous materials. First, we review the typical natural porous materials including cuttlebone, bighorn sheep horn, pomelo peel, and sunflower stem pith. The architectures, energy absorption abilities, and mechanisms of these typical natural materials and their bioinspired materials are summarized. Then, we provide a review on the fabrication methods of artificial energy-absorbing porous materials, such as conventional foaming and three-dimensional (3D) printing. Finally, we address the challenges and prospects for the future development of energy-absorbing porous materials. More importantly, our review provides a direct guidance for the design and fabrication of energy-absorbing porous materials required for various engineering applications.