Modeling Symmetric Minimal Surfaces by Mesh Subdivision

Abstract

Thanks to the great diffusion of additive manufacturing technologies, the interest in lattice structures is growing. Among them, minimal surfaces are characterized by zero mean curvature, allowing enhanced properties such as mechanical response and fluidynamic behavior. Recent works showed a method for geometric modeling triply periodic minimal surfaces (TPMS) based on subdivision surface. In this paper, the deviation between the subdivided TPMS and the implicit defined ones is investigated together with mechanical properties computed by numerical methods. As a result, a model of mechanical properties as a function of the TPMS thickness and relative density is proposed.