Compression and resilient behavior of graded triply periodic minimal surface structures with soft materials fabricated by fused filament fabrication

Additive manufacturing is an effective method to realize complex biomimetic topology and tunable mechanical property. In the current work, to meet the requirements of damping buffers and energy absorbers, triply periodic minimal surface (TPMS) structure using two soft polymeric blends as feedstock materials were gradient design and manufactured via fused filament fabrication. The internal topography of Schwarz P, Gyroid and Diamond TPMS structures were observed by scanning electron microscope and micro-computed topography. The compressive test results demonstrated that Diamond possessed superior load-carrying and energy absorption capacity to Gyroid and Schwarz P structure. The energy absorption for graded Diamond and Gyroid structures were better than the uniform controls, whereas Schwarz P displayed an opposite trend. Meanwhile, less internal damage and good resilient behavior were observed for polymeric blends with better resistance to plastic deformation. Lastly, cycle loadings were conducted, and the elastic energy, consumed energy as well as the specific damping capacity for graded and uniform TPMS soft structures were explored. With the increase of loading cycles, the Diamond TPMS structure exhibited a better damping behavior whereas Schwarz P displayed an elastic behavior. The elastic deformation was gradually replaced by the inelastic deformation of energy consumption and dissipation.

Automated summary

This study utilized additive manufacturing to create triply periodic minimal surface (TPMS) structures and analyzed their mechanical properties and energy absorption capacity. The results demonstrated that the Diamond TPMS structure had superior load-carrying and energy absorption capacity. Additionally, polymeric blends with higher resistance to plastic deformation showed less internal damage and good resilient behavior. The cyclic loading experiments revealed that the Diamond TPMS structure exhibited better damping behavior, while the Schwarz P structure displayed elastic behavior.