Pomelo Peel-Inspired 3D-Printed Porous Structure for Efficient Absorption of Compressive Strain Energy

Baisong Yang, Wenhui Chen, Renlong Xin, Xiaohong Zhou, Di Tan, Chuan Ding, You Wu, Liang Yin, Chuyang Chen, Shan Wang, Zhenglei Yu, Jonathan T. Pham, Sheng Liu, Yifeng Lei, Longjian Xue

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

7 Scopus citations

Abstract

The porous structure in pomelo peel is believed to be responsible for the protection of its fruit from damage during the free falling from a tree. The quantitative understanding of the relationship between the deformation behavior and the porous structure could pave the way for the design of porous structures for efficient energy absorption. Here, a universal feature of pore distribution in pomelo peels along the radial direction is extracted from three varieties of pomelos, which shows strong correlation to the deformation behavior of the peels under compression. Guided by the porous design found in pomelo peels, porous polyether-ether-ketone (PEEK) cube is additively manufactured and possesses the highest ability to absorb energy during compression as compared to the non-pomelo-inspired geometries, which is further confirmed by the finite element simulation. The nature-optimized porous structure revealed here could guide the design of lightweight and high-energy-dissipating materials/devices.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)448-457
Number of pages10
JournalJournal of Bionic Engineering
Volume19
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - Mar 2022

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
This work was supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (2018YFB1105100) and National Natural Science Foundation of China (51973165).

Publisher Copyright:
© 2021, The Author(s).

Keywords

  • 3D printing
  • Bionic design
  • Energy absorption
  • Pomelo peel
  • Porous structure

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Bioengineering
  • Biophysics
  • Biotechnology

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