Tunable Energy Absorption in Diatom-inspired Architected Materials Designed for Additive Manufacturing

Abstract

Spurred on by additive manufacturing, architected materials have opened up new opportunities to overcome the performance and functionality limitations of commercially available materials. Yet, the development and optimization of this new class of multiscale materials are held back by the intense analytical, computational, and experimental efforts required to understand their complex property-structure-process-performance relationship. To speed up the design process and solve this issue, data-driven approaches are becoming increasingly popular. To demonstrate the potential of metamodeling techniques in materials science, in this study we analyze the mechanical energy absorption properties of honeycombs inspired by diatom frustules. We first generate a dataset through finite element simulations. Then we build regression models that allow us to predict and customize honeycomb features, while minimizing the use of numerical analysis. The combination of Nature's design principles, used to shape biological materials, and metamodeling techniques, applied to in silico testing, represents a powerful opportunity to increase the efficiency and performance of man-made materials, and this research is proof of that.