Biomimetic torene shells

Mathematics and Mechanics of Solids, vol. 28, pp. 1926–1935

Abstract

The genome inside the eukaryotic cells is guarded by a unique shell structure, called the nuclear envelope (NE), made of lipid membranes. This structure has an ultra torus topology with thousands of torus-shaped holes that imparts the structure a high flexural stiffness. Inspired from this biological design, here we present a novel “torene” architecture to design lightweight shell structures with ultra-stiffness for engineering applications. We perform finite element analyses on classic benchmark problems to investigate the mechanics of torene shells. This study reveals that the torene shells can achieve one order of magnitude or higher flexural stiffness than traditional shells with the same amount of material. This novel geometric strategy opens new avenues to exploit additive manufacturing to design lightweight shell structures for extreme mechanical environments.

Authors 3

1. Maziyar Bazmara

   University of Houston

   Affiliation as printed

   Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Houston, Houston, TX, USA

2. Roger A. Sauer Aachen Graduate School AICES

   RWTH Aachen University · Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati · Gdańsk University of Technology

   Affiliation as printed

   Department of Civil Engineering, Gdańsk University of Technology, Gdańsk, Poland; Graduate School AICES, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany; Department of Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, Guwahati, India

   Graduate School AICES, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany

3. Ashutosh Agrawal corresponding

   University of Houston

   Affiliation as printed

   Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Houston, Houston, TX, USA