{"id":244249,"date":"2026-09-19T05:24:32","date_gmt":"2026-09-19T10:24:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/09\/nanotube-material-has-perfect-memory"},"modified":"2026-09-19T05:24:32","modified_gmt":"2026-09-19T10:24:32","slug":"nanotube-material-has-perfect-memory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/09\/nanotube-material-has-perfect-memory","title":{"rendered":"Nanotube Material Has Perfect Memory"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"padding-right: 20px\"><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/nanotube-material-has-perfect-memory.webp\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>A carbon nanotube foam springs back to its initial state, regardless of the speed of the compression, a property that could lead to a new type of shock absorber.<\/p>\n<p>Spongy materials can spring back following compression, but they don\u2019t return exactly to their original shape. New experiments show that a foam made with carbon nanotubes snaps back to its initial shape, implying a perfect mechanical \u201cmemory\u201d [<a href=\"https:\/\/physics.aps.org\/articles\/v19\/129#c1\">1<\/a>]. The material is also uniquely insensitive to deformation rate, behaving the same under fast and slow compressions. The researchers found that this combination of memory and rate-independence leads to an unusual property: The material\u2019s response to mechanical shocks can be adjusted by appropriately compressing it before the shock. They imagine using this foam in \u201csmart\u201d helmets that reduce injury risk by controlling the propagation of impact energy.<\/p>\n<p>Polymer foams\u2014like the ones in some mattresses\u2014can spring back, but viscosity effects cause irreversible changes to the internal structure, preventing the material from returning to its initial state. With repeated cycles of compression and release, the material drifts further from its original condition. \u201cPeople refer to this as fading memory,\u201d says Ramathasan Thevamaran from the University of Wisconsin\u2013Madison. He and his colleagues have found a material that isn\u2019t so forgetful.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A carbon nanotube foam springs back to its initial state, regardless of the speed of the compression, a property that could lead to a new type of shock absorber. Spongy materials can spring back following compression, but they don\u2019t return exactly to their original shape. New experiments show that a foam made with carbon nanotubes [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1497,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-244249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy","category-nanotechnology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244249"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244249\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}