A novel lattice structure design approach based on Schwarz Primitive triply periodic minimal surfaces

In recent years, lattice structures based on triply periodic minimal surfaces have attracted the attention of researchers worldwide due to their exceptional geometrical and mechanical features. In this paper, using two distinct implicit functions for the rotation angle and the axis of rotation, the surface points of the Schwarz’ Primitive cellular lattice are moved to a new position to construct some novel lattices. Various cellular lattices are then generated by manipulating different design parameters and investigated using finite element method to evaluate porosity, surface-to-volume ratio, elastic modulus and Zener ratio. The findings indicate that although the porosity doesn’t change profoundly by applying the transformation, the surface-to-volume ratio and elastic modulus increases and decreases respectively as the maximum rotation angle increases. In addition, Zener ratio exhibits non-linear variation with the transformation, potentially increasing or decreasing by increasing the maximum rotation angle, depending on other parameters. The maximum difference between the values of surface-to-volume ratio, elastic modulus, and Zener ratio of the novel lattices and those of the original one is 16.9 % (for one case it decreases by 68.7 %), 68.5 %, and 45.6 %, respectively. These observations suggest that the proposed method might presents significant potential for facilitating the creation of innovative shell-based lattice structures.