3D printed sandwich beams with bioinspired cores: Mechanical performance and modelling

Abstract

Triply periodic minimal surface (TPMS) based cellular structures have drawn increasingly attention due to their mathematically controlled topologies and promising mechanical properties. Here, we combine 3D-printing technique, experiments, theoretical formulation and numerical simulation to investigate a novel class of lightweight sandwich structures with TPMS cores. Sandwich structures with Primitive, Neovius and IWP core topologies are designed and fabricated using a 3D-printing technique. The bending properties, failure mechanism as well as energy absorption capacity of these TPMS sandwich structures are evaluated via a three-point bending test. A numerical model is developed to analyse th..