A novel bioinspired architectured materials with interlocking designs based on tessellation*

Nature has achieved intricately designed materials with properties and functions that go far beyond the existing engineering materials. The remarkable efficiency of these biological materials is the result of billions of years of evolution. In this study, bioinspired design of architectured materials based on principles of edge-to-edge tessellation is additively manufactured. The tessellations are inspired by the atomic arrangements in cubic metallic crystal structures; simple cubic (SC), body-centered cubic (BCC), and face-centered cubic (FCC). The unit cells in these tessellations were evolved from the basic spherical morphology along with necessary surfaces at the joining area to achieve edge-to-edge tessellations. The biomimetic architectured materials called 'advanced functional architectured materials (AFAMs)' are designed and printed with HP-MJF 4200 powder bed fusion technology. The structural and functional properties of each AFAM were evaluated experimentally and numerically under uniaxial compression testing. The result showed FCC AFAM has high peak strength, elastic modulus, and energy absorption compared to other benchmarked surface and truss-based lattice structures. In contrast, SC AFAM demonstrated high deformation (ductility) before densification. The study also reveals that each AFAM behaves uniquely, almost as different material, in terms of its load-bearing and deformation abilities. All the AFAMs can be interlocked without any interface issues to achieve multi-material properties which otherwise cannot be achieved with functionally graded structure. The combination of these AFAMs can be utilized as an efficient solution for achieving a complex set of multi-functional requirements in additively manufactured products.