A Numerical Study of Geometry’s Impact on the Thermal and Mechanical Properties of Periodic Surface Structures

Abstract

The paper focuses on thermal and mechanical analysis of Periodic Surface Structure (PSS). PSS is a continuous surface with a specific topology that is mathematically formulated by geometric factors. Cubic P-surface (“primitive”), D-surface (“diamond”), and G-surface (“gyroid”) structures were simulated under load and heat transport using a numerical approach. We conducted our study by solving the stress and heat equations using the Finite Element Method (FEM). We achieved results using our software module, which generates PSS and simulates stress and temperature distribution. The stress model defined by dependence between stress and strain, gained from an experiment, and correlation of strain and displacement, gained from geometric conditions, was used in numerical experiments. The influence of geometric factors on the thermal and mechanical behavior of PSS was qualitatively determined. We showed decreasing effective stress values with an increased number of cells in the cubic domain for concerned PSS. It is important, because the increase in the number of cells does not increase the structure’s volume.