Vibranium, from fiction to engineering – a journey through the science of materials
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5902/2965694X92077Keywords:
Fiction-inspired innovation, Advanced materials, Hybrid architectures, Vibranium, Materials engineeringAbstract
Vibranium, the fictional metal of the Marvel universe embodied in Captain America’s shield, aggregates extreme and mutually challenging properties—high fracture toughness (KIC > 200 MPa·m1/2), near-perfect restitution (ε ≈ 0.98), and dynamic dimensional stability that no known real material simultaneously achieves. This work treats that ideal as a conceptual catalyst for innovation: it systematically compares those fictional functionalities to real high-performance materials (e.g., graphene, aerogels, smart alloys), maps the resulting gaps, and proposes a hybrid multilayer architecture to approximate the desired multi-objective performance.
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Copyright (c) 2025 Camila dos Santos Torres, Andressa da Silva Mougenot, Lara Bonatto Lorenzoni, Maria Clara Burgues Nepomuceno, Pietra Machado Unfer Santos

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