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Design of three-dimensional, triply periodic unit cell scaffold structures for additive manufacturing

journal contribution
posted on 2020-07-10, 09:09 authored by Mazher MohammedMazher Mohammed, Ian Gibson
Highly organized, porous architectures leverage the true potential of additive manufacturing (AM) as they can simply not be manufactured by any other means. However, their mainstream usage is being hindered by the traditional methodologies of design which are heavily mathematically orientated and do not allow ease of controlling geometrical attributes. In this study, we aim to address these limitations through a more design-driven approach and demonstrate how complex mathematical surfaces, such as triply periodic structures, can be used to generate unit cells and be applied to design scaffold structures in both regular and irregular volumes in addition to hybrid formats. We examine the conversion of several triply periodic mathematical surfaces into unit cell structures and use these to design scaffolds, which are subsequently manufactured using fused filament fabrication (FFF) additive manufacturing. We present techniques to convert these functions from a two-dimensional surface to three-dimensional (3D) unit cell, fine tune the porosity and surface area, and examine the nuances behind conversion into a scaffold structure suitable for 3D printing. It was found that there are constraints in the final size of unit cell that can be suitably translated through a wider structure while still allowing for repeatable printing, which ultimately restricts the attainable porosities and smallest printed feature size. We found this limit to be approximately three times the stated precision of the 3D printer used this study. Ultimately, this work provides guidance to designers/engineers creating porous structures, and findings could be useful in applications such as tissue engineering and product light-weighting.

Funding

Funding for this project was provided by Deakin University’s School of Engineering and Faculty of Science, Engineering, and Built Environment.

History

School

  • Design

Published in

Journal of Mechanical Design

Volume

140

Issue

7

Publisher

American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME)

Version

  • VoR (Version of Record)

Rights holder

© ASME

Publisher statement

This paper was accepted for publication in the journal Journal of Mechanical Design and the definitive published version is available at https://doi.org/10.1115/1.4040164.

Acceptance date

2018-04-17

Publication date

2018-05-23

Copyright date

2018

ISSN

1050-0472

eISSN

1528-9001

Other identifier

Paper No: MD-17-1093

Language

  • en

Depositor

Dr Mazher Mohammed. Deposit date: 8 July 2020

Article number

071701

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