Design, Fabrication, and Properties Assessment of Novel Nested Lattice Structures Based on Triply Periodic Minimal Surfaces via Topology Optimization

Additive manufacturing drives the development of nested lattice structures, which support initial lattices to reduce instability from large sizes and voids. This paper proposes nine novel lattice structures nested by the plate and shell lattices based on triply periodic minimal surfaces (TPMS). Through the TPMS shell lattice structure, it is expanded into two types of shell lattices named TPMS‐like plate lattice (TLPL) and TPMS‐quadrilateral plate lattice (TQPL). The simple cubic (SC) lattice is analyzed and expanded into three types of plate structures named central combined plate lattice (CCPL), middle combined plate lattice (MCPL), and edge combined plate lattice (ECPL). Through numerical analysis of finite element simulation and testing of single‐axis compression experiments, it discusses optimized lattices and evaluates anisotropy by homogenization. The Type 4 lattice structure, nested by TPMS and CCPL, following the homogenization process, exhibits better Young's modulus and elastic modulus values of 17.3 and 7.09 MPa. Compared to single TPMS shells, elastic modulus of TPMS with CCPL, MCPL, and ECPL nested lattices increase by 260.75%, 238.9%, and 93.51%. Before densification, the TQPL with MCPL nested lattice absorbs 73.05% more energy per volume than with CCPL, and 16.76% more than with ECPL.