Bio-inspired design and additive manufacturing of cellular materials

Cellular materials, such as honeycomb panels and foams, have found a wide range of application in several engineering systems in aerospace, ranging from heat exchangers to acoustic liners. In addition to enabling improvements in the performance of existing functional applications, cellular materials have the potential to be a vital building block in realizing multifunctional design. It is only recently, with the progress in additive manufacturing (AM) technologies, that the design possibilities of cellular materials are being fully realized, and engineers can now take a “blank slate” approach to cellular material design. This freedom poses several questions to the designer of cellular materials, and the answers to these questions are not always apparent using traditional engineering approaches. This chapter argues for how the answers to these questions can be found in natural structures and also sheds light on the nature of design constraints imposed by AM processes. A three-part framework is proposed and demonstrated for the specific example of the hexagonal honeycomb.