Design and Compression Behavior Exploration of Skeletal and Sheet Triply Periodic Minimal Surface Structures

Abstract

Six triply periodic minimal surface (TPMS) structures are designed, and their static compression behavior is evaluated in this research. TPMS structures are new type of porous structures super material, which can provide better mechanical properties than the traditional lattice structures in the engineering manufacturing field can. Six TPMS structures (Skeletal Diamond, Skeletal Gyroid, Skeletal I‐graph‐wrapped package (IWP), Sheet Diamond, Sheet Gyroid, and Sheet IWP) are actively designed by parameterization, and the relationship between parameter C and the structures’ relative density is obtained using the interpolation method. Six TPMS structures with different relative densities (10%, 20%, 30%, and 40%) are prepared by selective laser melting using Ti6Al4V powder. Static compression tests are conducted to evaluate the compression performance of these six structures. The results show that at the same relative density, sheet structures have better mechanical properties than skeletal structures. A deformation analysis of the compression process reveals that skeletal structures are dominated by layered fractures and sheet structures by overall fractures. An analysis of the overall experimental results further reveals that the Sheet Diamond structure has the best mechanical properties among the six structures, and the Skeletal Gyroid structure has the best mechanical properties among the three skeletal structures.