Comparison of Compressive Properties of 3D-Printed Triply Periodic Minimal Surfaces and Honeycomb Lattice Structures

Additive manufacturing has enabled the fabrication of complex, bioinspired lattice structures, such as Triply Periodic Minimal Surfaces (TPMSs), for use in lightweight structural applications. To assess their engineering viability, this study benchmarks the compressive properties of isotropic Gyroid and Primitive TPMS lattices against those of the conventional, anisotropic Honeycomb structure, which is widely used in the aerospace industry. We employed a combined computational and experimental approach, using Finite Element Analysis (FEA) for initial evaluation followed by mechanical compression testing of stereolithography (SLA)-printed polymer samples. Full-field strain was measured using Digital Image Correlation (DIC) to validate the simulations. The results show that the Gyroid has a strength-to-density of 5.692, the Primitive has a ratio of 5.182, the Honeycomb in the axial direction has a ratio of 26.144, and the Honeycomb in the transverse direction has a ratio of 1.008, all in units of N·kg−1m3. These results clearly indicate that the Honeycomb is best when uniaxially loaded. For other applications where the load paths will vary in multiple directions, the Gyroid is the better option.