On the crushing behaviour of scutoid-based bioinspired cellular structures

This article proposes a 3 D printed bioinspired cellular structure known as Scutoids for use in lightweight sandwich designs under compression loads. The 3 D Scutoid cells are epithelial cell that are known for the property of stabilised tissue packing. Four self-packing Scutoid cells are designed for a cellular structure and investigated for deformation, crushing profile, stress concentration, and forces to assess its energy absorption capabilities at various crushing velocities using Aluminium alloy as material in ABAQUS/Explicit. Further, the effect of position of transition point that forms as a result of cell intercalation process along the apico-basal axis on the deformation is also studied by generating different Scutoid cell motifs. The performance of the Scutoid structure is compared to conventional honeycomb with similar mass and surface area. The suitability of the four-cell bioinspired Scutoid motif as a precursor to generate a sandwich structure is discussed by reproducing the cells.