Integrated design, simulation, and experimental validation of advanced cellular metamaterials

Novak, Nejc (author), Ren, Zoran (author), Vesenjak, Matej (author)

Cellular metamaterials offer supreme properties for engineering, medicine, and defence, but their transition to industrial use faces design, fabrication, and characterisation challenges. This review provides an overview of 20 years of advancements in cellular structures, from open-cell foams to triply periodic minimal surfaces (TPMS), presenting novel fabrication techniques (e.g., explosive compaction for UniPore structures) and demonstrating validated computational models for optimising graded auxetic and hybrid TPMS lattices. The study indicates that porosity and base material primarily govern energy absorption, with closed-cell foams and TPMS outperforming other geometries. Additive manufacturing enables spatially graded designs with tailored mechanical properties. This work accelerates the development of next-generation metamaterials for crash absorption, blast protection, and biomedical devices.

• Language: English
• Keywords: cellular structures, metamaterials, experimental testing, computational simulations, mechanical properties
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: FS - Faculty of Mechanical Engineering
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Year: 2025
• Number of pages: 9 str.
• Numbering: Vol. 71, no. 9/10
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-177377
• UDC: 539.2:620.1
• ISSN on article: 2536-3948
• DOI: 10.5545/sv-jme.2025.1363
• COBISS.SI-ID: 259520259
• Publication date in RUL: 22.12.2025

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Strojniški vestnik
• Shortened title: Stroj. vestn.
• Publisher: Fakulteta za strojništvo
• ISSN: 2536-3948
• COBISS.SI-ID: 294943232

Licences

• License: CC BY 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• Description: This is the standard Creative Commons license that gives others maximum freedom to do what they want with the work as long as they credit the author.

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian

Abstract

Celični metamateriali nudijo vrhunske lastnosti za inženirstvo, medicino in obrambo, vendar njihov prehod v industrijsko uporabo otežujejo izzivi pri razvoju, izdelavi in karakterizaciji. Ta pregled ponuja povzetek 20 let napredka na področju celičnih struktur, od pen z odprtimi celicami do struktur s trojno periodičnimi minimalnimi površinami (TPMS). Predstavlja nove tehnike izdelave (npr. eksplozijsko varjenje za strukture UniPore) in prikazuje validirane računalniške modele za optimizacijo gradiranih avksetičnih in hibridnih TPMS metamaterialov. Študija kaže, da na absorpcijo energije vplivata predvsem poroznost in osnovni material, pri čemer se zaprto-celične pene in TPMS strukture izkažejo bolje kot druge geometrije. Dodajalne tehnologije omogočajo prostorsko gradiranje s prilagojenimi mehanskimi lastnostmi. To delo pospešuje razvoj metamaterialov naslednje generacije za absorpcijo trkov, zaščito pred eksplozijami in biomedicinske naprave.

• Keywords: celične strukture, metamateriali, eksperimentalno testiranje, računalniške simulacije, mehanske lastnosti

Projects

• Funder: ARIS - Slovenian Research and Innovation Agency
• Project number: P2-0063
• Name: Konstruiranje celičnih struktur

• Funder: ARIS - Slovenian Research and Innovation Agency
• Project number: J2-60049
• Name: Razvoj naprednih celičnih metamaterialov