Hollow-walled metamaterials: Unifying mechanical resilience and biointegration through continuous curvature

• Merges minimal-surface (TPMS) with hollow walls to unify strength–toughness demands. • Doubles energy absorption vs. top lattices by redistributing stress uniformly. • Achieves bone-mimetic stiffness and >270 MPa strength, surpassing cortical standards. • Expands surface area by 80%, boosting osteoblast proliferation and metabolic activity. Conventional lattice materials for load-bearing implants often struggle to combine high strength, stable failure modes, and effective biointegration, a challenge rooted in their discontinuous geometries and stress-concentrating nodal junctions. Here, we introduce hollow-walled triply periodic minimal surface (TPMS) metamaterials, a biomimetic architecture that merges the continuous curvature of minimal surfaces with engineered voids to overcome these limitations. Unlike prior hollow-strut designs prone to powder occlusion and stress localization, our Ti–6Al–4V lattices, fabricated through a single-step Boolean subtraction strategy, eliminate nodal stress risers while retaining open, interconnected channels. As a result, these structures achieve compressive strengths exceeding 270 MPa, surpassing cortical bone benchmarks, and specific energy absorption of 32 J g −1 —twice that of state-of-the-art lattices—enabled by progressive layer-by-layer buckling that prevents catastrophic collapse. In parallel, the hollow-walled design amplifies surface area by 80 %, driving 66 % greater human fibroblast proliferation and 40 % higher metabolic activity compared to solid TPMS scaffolds. By unifying mechanical resilience with biofunctional efficacy through geometry-driven innovation, this work presents a versatile design paradigm for next-generation implants, aerospace systems, and multifunctional metamaterials.

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Publication Details

Journal
Materials & Design
Published
2025-07-21
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matdes.2025.114429
Citations
1
Primary Topic
Cellular and Composite Structures
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
0.71

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article

Hollow-walled metamaterials: Unifying mechanical resilience and biointegration through continuous curvature

Qiyang Tan, Fanshuo Wang, Zhuoyang Xin, Deniz U. Erbulut et al.
1 citations
Materials & Design
Cellular and Composite Structures
0.71
article

Hollow-walled metamaterials: Unifying mechanical resilience and biointegration through continuous curvature

Qiyang Tan, Fanshuo Wang, Zhuoyang Xin, Deniz U. Erbulut, Mingxing Zhang, Yiwei Li, Chun Xu, Anh Ly
article en
1 citations

Abstract

• Merges minimal-surface (TPMS) with hollow walls to unify strength–toughness demands. • Doubles energy absorption vs. top lattices by redistributing stress uniformly. • Achieves bone-mimetic stiffness and >270 MPa strength, surpassing cortical standards. • Expands surface area by 80%, boosting osteoblast proliferation and metabolic activity. Conventional lattice materials for load-bearing implants often struggle to combine high strength, stable failure modes, and effective biointegration, a challenge rooted in their discontinuous geometries and stress-concentrating nodal junctions. Here, we introduce hollow-walled triply periodic minimal surface (TPMS) metamaterials, a biomimetic architecture that merges the continuous curvature of minimal surfaces with engineered voids to overcome these limitations. Unlike prior hollow-strut designs prone to powder occlusion and stress localization, our Ti–6Al–4V lattices, fabricated through a single-step Boolean subtraction strategy, eliminate nodal stress risers while retaining open, interconnected channels. As a result, these structures achieve compressive strengths exceeding 270 MPa, surpassing cortical bone benchmarks, and specific energy absorption of 32 J g −1 —twice that of state-of-the-art lattices—enabled by progressive layer-by-layer buckling that prevents catastrophic collapse. In parallel, the hollow-walled design amplifies surface area by 80 %, driving 66 % greater human fibroblast proliferation and 40 % higher metabolic activity compared to solid TPMS scaffolds. By unifying mechanical resilience with biofunctional efficacy through geometry-driven innovation, this work presents a versatile design paradigm for next-generation implants, aerospace systems, and multifunctional metamaterials.

Materials & DesignVol. 257
The University of Sydney (AU), The University of Queensland (AU), Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital (AU), Sydney Dental Hospital (AU)
Australian Research Council
Openalex Percentile: Top 30%
Cellular and Composite Structures
0.71
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