Materials and Design 160 (2018) 179–193

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Materials and Design

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/matdes

3D printed meta-sandwich structures: Failure mechanism, energy

absorption and multi-hit capability
H. Yazdani Sarvestani a, A.H. Akbarzadeh a,b,⁎, A. Mirbolghasemi a, K. Hermenean c
a
AM3L Laboratory, Department of Bioresource Engineering, McGill University, Island of Montreal, QC H9X 3V9, Canada
b
Department of Mechanical Engineering, McGill University, Montreal, QC H3A 0C3, Canada
c
MACHINA Corp., Edmonton, AB T6H 2H3, Canada

H I G H L I G H T S G R A P H I C A L A B S T R A C T

• A comprehensive study was developed

to determine the preferred geometry of
architected 3D-printed meta-sandwich
structures.
• We 3D printed architected sandwich
beams and plates of different
metamaterial cellular cores and con-
ducted quasi-static and low-velocity
impact tests.
• The structures with Isomax
metamaterial cellular cores had a higher
level of energy absorption capability.
• A numerical methodology, analytical
formulation and experimental testing
were developed for a new generation
of architected sandwich structures.

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: A new class of lightweight and 3D printable architected sandwich structures, named as meta-sandwich struc-
Received 6 August 2018 tures, has been introduced. These lightweight sandwich structures, which have been made of mechanical meta-
Received in revised form 29 August 2018 materials as the core, show many advantages such as high stiffness-to-weight ratio and high energy absorption
Accepted 31 August 2018
capability. In this paper, finite element simulation and experimental testing were implemented to evaluate the
Available online 03 September 2018
structural durability of 3D printed meta-sandwiches under quasi-static flexure and low-velocity impact tests.
Keywords:
We specifically investigated the failure mechanism, energy absorption and multi-hit capability of 3D printed
Architected meta-sandwich structures polymeric meta-sandwich structures made of cubic, octet and Isomax cellular cores. Three-point bending exper-
3D printing iments on 3D printed meta-sandwich beams were conducted to evaluate their flexural stiffness and quasi-static
Metamaterials energy absorption, followed by low-velocity impact tests to determine their dynamic energy absorption and
Failure mechanism multi-hit capabilities. Analytical formulations were also developed to capture the failure mechanism in the
Energy absorption architected sandwich structures. It is found that the core topology and geometrical parameters have significant
effects on failure mechanism and energy absorption of meta-sandwich structures. For example, Isomax meta-
sandwich structures show high quasi-static and dynamic impact energy absorption capabilities.
© 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

⁎ Corresponding author at: AM3L Laboratory, Department of Bioresource Engineering, McGill University, Island of Montreal, QC H9X 3V9, Canada.
E-mail addresses: hamid.akbarzadeh@mcgill.ca URL: https://www.mcgill.ca/bioeng/faculty-and-staff/abdolhamid-akbarzadeh-shafaroudi (A.H. Akbarzadeh).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matdes.2018.08.061
0264-1275/© 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
180 H. Yazdani Sarvestani et al. / Materials and Design 160 (2018) 179–193

z
z
b
a a b
x y y
t x
tf tc tf t
tc

Ls Face-sheets

(a) (b)

Fig. 1. Geometry and coordinate system: (a) Meta-sandwich beam and (b) Meta-sandwich plate.

1. Introduction The structural and energy absorption performance as well as failure

Lightweight sandwich structures are nowadays extensively used in
aerospace, marine, automobile, windmill and building industrial sec-
tors, mainly due to their excellent multifunctional properties such as
high flexural stiffness, thermal insulation and high energy-absorption
capabilities [1,2]. Sandwich structures consist of three components:
two thin solid face-sheets with high flexural stiffness at top and bottom
surfaces separated by a relatively thick lightweight core. The light-
weight core connects the face-sheets with a little increase in weight,
providing a high bending and buckling resistance [3] and excellent
shear stiffness and energy absorption capability [4]. Optimized light-
weight sandwich structures are made of architected cellular cores,
which carry transverse shear and compression loads, and solid face-
sheets which carry in-plane load and flexure [1]. Concerning limited en-
ergy and material resources, lightweight micro-architected sandwich
structures are of growing interest since they can simultaneously reduce
the weight of structural elements while satisfying multiple functionali-
ties, e.g. structural rigidity [5], heat exchanging [6] and electrical proper-
ties [7]. Recent advances in manufacturing, e.g. additive manufacturing
(or 3D printing) and laser cutting, have enabled manufacturing of
architected cellular cores of free-form two-dimensional (2D) and
three-dimensional (3D) topologies, which are impossible to be fabri-
cated by conventional manufacturing processes of sandwich structures,
e.g. extrusion, expansion and corrugation [8]. Opposed to foaming pro-
cess (e.g. compression molding, casting and solid-gas eutectic solidifica-
tion [3]), which leads to manufacturing of porous materials with
random morphologies, 3D printing offers a robust manufacturing pro-
cess for controlling the microarchitecture of cellular materials made of
polymers, composites and metals which makes 3D printed materials ap-
plicable in medicine as a scaffold for regeneration of tissues and organs
[9], in the electromagnetic industry as interference shielding [10–12], in
space sectors for satellite structures [13] or in thermal management as
heat exchangers [14]. Among advantages of 3D printing, the program-
mability of multifunctional properties over a multiple length scale
through controlling architecture and geometrical features of cellular
cores [15–18] can be highlighted; however, the reliability of 3D printed
components is yet to be examined as 3D printing commonly leads to
manufacturing defects [19,20].
Table 1
Geometrical parameters of meta-sandwich structures (Unit: mm).
Geometry Length Width Total Core Face-sheet Span
(a) (b) thickness thickness thickness length
(t) (tc) (tf) (Ls)
Beams 140 20 30 20 5 90
140 40 50 40 5 rial used to build the core and face-sheets and (d) Core topology. The
Plate 100 100 50 40 5 –
mechanism of a cellular sandwich structure depend on its constituent
material, geometrical parameters and core cell topology. Among all pos-
sible topologies, conventional honeycombs have been widely studied
[21–23]. Sandwich structures with conventional honeycomb cores are
stiff and lightweight and are capable of absorbing high impact energy
under impact loads and shockwaves, for example for applications in
sports goods (e.g. helmet) and vehicles (e.g. bumpers) [24,25].
However, they commonly suffer from the closed-cell architecture of
their core due to gas retention and moisture trapping within their
core [1]. Moisture trapped in the closed-cell cores increases the weight
of sandwich structures and shifts their center of gravity, a culprit which
can be diminished by open-cell cores [1] such as truss-like lattices
[26,27]. Compared to regular honeycombs, it has been shown that lat-
tice cores can significantly increase the buckling resistance and energy
absorption capability of sandwich structures [28,29]. Another type of
cellular cores is auxetic cells which have been examined in recent pa-
pers [30,31] due to their unusual deformation mechanism,
i.e., negative Poisson's ratio. The structural responses of sandwich struc-
tures with auxetic cores were analyzed under small deformation
[32,33], large deformation [34,35], bending [36,37] and low-velocity im-
pact [38]. It has been shown that the angle of auxetic cores has a signif-
icant influence on the structural responses of the sandwich structures
[36]. In addition, it was found that the auxetic composite panels were
able to absorb the dynamic impact energy through plastic deformation
and the displacements of the back face-sheet can consequently be re-
duced [38].
Recent studies have shown that architected 3D printed cores, espe-
cially those with 3D microarchitecture, present a new class of highly-
optimized energy-absorption structures that offer flexibility in control-
ling the response of sandwich structures under quasi-static and impact
loads [39–43]. Lightweight Isomax cores, as one of the new architected
cellular structure, are maximally stiff in all directions with maximum
theoretical toughness [44]. Although a few studies have been performed
on sandwich structures with 3D printed architected cores to evaluate
flexural behavior [44–46] and out-of-plane compressive strength
[47,48], less attention has been paid to explore the failure mechanism,
energy absorption and multi-hit capabilities of additively manufactured
sandwich structures with 3D architected core topologies subjected to
quasi-static and impact loads.
Present research investigated the structural responses, failure mech-
anism, multi-hit and energy absorption capabilities of 3D printed
architected sandwich structures with mechanical metamaterial cores,
e.g. cubic, octet and Isomax cell topologies. Their behavior was studied
to efficiently optimize the energy absorption performance. The failure
mechanism and energy absorption capability of a meta-sandwich struc-
ture are influenced by its: (a) Total dimensions (length, width and
thickness), (b) Mass (relative density), (c) Properties of the base mate-
current study focuses on the effect of architected core topologies and
 H. Yazdani Sarvestani et al. / Materials and Design 160 (2018) 179–193 181

Cubic Octet Isomax (Cubic + Octet)

(a)

(b)
Fig. 2. (a) Unit cells of the mechanical metamaterial cellular cores and (b) Geometrical characteristics of octet unit cell.

relative density on the structural responses (Section S4 of Supplemen-
tary Document), flexural stiffness (Section 3.1.3), energy absorption per-
formance (Sections 3.1.2 and 3.2.2), failure mechanism (Section 3.1.4)
and multi-hit capability (Section S2 of Supplementary Document) of
meta-sandwich structures 3D printed by fused deposition modeling
(FDM). The current research sheds lights on the durability of 3D printed
meta-sandwich structures as lightweight load-bearing and energy ab-
sorbent engineering components.
composed of sheet plate and exploit material constraints in two direc-
tions rather than beam-like struts in lattices [44].
Although closed-cell cubic and octet unit cells store a maximum
amount of strain energy, they are highly anisotropic [44]. As a result,
Isomax [44] has recently been introduced by combining cubic and
octet unit cells to achieve an isotropic cellular material reaching the
upper bound of Hashin-Shtrikman for elastic stiffness and to show a

Table 2
2. Materials and methods
Representative of 3D printed meta-sandwich beams and plates fabricated by FDM 3D
printing.
2.1. Meta-sandwich structures and experimental set-up

In a previous study [19], we investigated energy absorption capabil-

ity of sandwich panels with architected 2D cores. Here, a new type of
lightweight sandwich structures consisting of repeating 3D cellular
cores with high stiffness-to-weight ratio and high energy absorption ca-
pability was designed. These cellular cores can reach the upper bound of Isomax beam (7 × 2 × 2) Octet beam (7 × 2 × 2)

Hashin-Shtrikman for elastic stiffness showing a maximum strain en-

ergy storage [44]. We name these structures “meta-sandwich structures”.
Fig. 1 shows the dimensions of the meta-sandwich beams and plates
including length (a), width (b), total thickness (t), core thickness (tc)
and face-sheet thickness (tf). The coordinate system (x, y, z) is located Cubic beam (7 × 2 × 2) Auxetic beam (7 × 2 × 2)
at the mid-plane of the meta-sandwich structures. The dimensions of
sandwich beams and plates, presented in Table 1, have been designed
based on ASTM D3763 [49], ASTM C393 [50] and experimental testing
limitations such as capacity or geometrical restrictions of flexural tester.

2.1.1. Mechanical metamaterials as cellular cores

Fig. 2 presents the unit cell configuration of three metamaterial cores
including cubic, octet and Isomax (cubic + octet) closed-cells [44]. All
inclined faces of octet and Isomax cells have 54.74° with respect to the
Octet sandwich plate Isomax sandwich plate
top plane, as can be calculated from Fig. 2b. Closed Isomax cells are
182 H. Yazdani Sarvestani et al. / Materials and Design 160 (2018) 179–193
( , )
(a)
Fig. 3. (a) Engineering stress-strain curves of 3D printed PLA dogbone coupons under tensile load, (b) 3D printed dogbone coupons before and after tensile tests.
maximum elastic strain energy storage. Isomax cells consist of distrib-
uted networks of plates to efficiently transfer loads between neighbor-
ing members leading to isotropic structural properties [44].
2.1.2. 3D Printing of Meta-sandwich Structures
The meta-sandwich beams and plates were manufactured by fused
deposition modeling (FDM) using MK2 3D printer, MACHINA Corp.,
out of polylactic acid (PLA) polymer. Considering the layer-by-layer fab-
rication process of FDM 3D printing, the layer orientation was found to
influence the mechanical properties of the 3D printed material.
Therefore, all samples were 3D printed along the same orientation.
Examples of 3D printed meta-sandwich beams and plates with four
core topologies are shown in Tables 2 and S.1 of Supplementary
Document.
2.1.3. Material properties
To study the 3D printed polymeric sandwich structure, it is essential
to first characterize the base PLA material. Dogbone tensile coupons, in
agreement with ASTM standard D638 [51], were 3D printed with the
same material used for 3D printing of meta-sandwich structures as
shown in Fig. 3. The tensile tests were performed on four 3D printed
dogbone coupons using an MTS mechanical tester with a 10 kN load cell.
It is often the case with FDM 3D printing processes that material
properties exhibit a certain degree of anisotropy. Yang et al. [52]
showed that the 3D printing orientation of 45° could provide an approx-
imation for evaluating the material properties of 3D printed materials,
e.g. Young's modulus and Poisson's ratio. Here, Dogbone coupons
were fabricated in the orientation of ±45° with respect to the loading
axis (See Fig. 3b). Fig. 3a presents the experimental tensile stress-
strain curves of 3D printed PLA coupons. The averaged experimental
properties of PLA are reported in Table 3.
Table 3
Experimental properties of 3D printed PLA dogbone coupons.
Young's modulus ðEÞ Ultimate strength (Su)
Average mechanical properties 2.3 ± 0.1 GPa 46.1 ± 1 MPa
⁎ Measured after failure of the PLA samples.
Before tensile test
3D print angle
After tensile test
(b)
2.1.4. Three-point bending test
Three-point bending tests were conducted on architected meta-
sandwich beams using an MTS test machine (Instron 5900R-5584) fol-
lowing ASTM C393 [50] to evaluate the flexural stiffness, quasi-static
energy absorption along with the failure mechanism as shown in
Fig. 4. Four 3D printed meta-sandwich beams with two span-to-
thickness ratios of Ls = 3 and 1.8 were considered, as shown in
Table S.2 of Supplementary Document. The transverse quasi-static load
was applied at a displacement rate of 0.5 mm/min with a preload of
1 N. The resolution of the load cell (MTS 661 20E-03 with maximum ca-
pacity of 100 kN) was 0.375 N. The load was applied by a central roller of
10 mm diameter with two outer cylindrical rollers with a 10 mm diam-
eter spaced 90 mm apart.
According to ASTM C393 [50], the span of sandwich beams must be
sufficiently short to determine the core shear strength; in this condition,
the core shear failure occurs prior to the face-sheet failure. Therefore,
the span length of the beam was set at 90 mm with respect to the
total thickness of one of the meta-sandwich beams selected as 30 mm
(Ls = 3).
2.1.5. Low-velocity impact test
To evaluate dynamic energy absorption capability of meta-sandwich
plates (See Table S.3 of Supplementary Document) The low-velocity im-
pact tests were performed using a drop weight machine with a 10 kN
load cell based on the guidelines given in ASTM standard D3763 [49].
The resolution of the load cell (MTS 661 19E-04 with maximum capacity
of 25 kN) was 0.01% of the maximum load. The impactor had a mass of
22 kg and a diameter of 25.4 mm. During the impact test, the samples
were constrained between two parallel rigid supports with 75 mm
diameter holes at their centers (See Fig. 5). Sufficient clamping pressure
was applied to prevent the samples from slipping during the
experiments.
Yield strain (εY) Poisson's ratio (υp)⁎ Plastic strain at break (εp)
0.024 ± 0.001 0.38 ± 0.003 0.085 ± 0.001
 H. Yazdani Sarvestani et al. / Materials and Design 160 (2018) 179–193 183

Fig. 4. 3-point bending test configurations of 3D printed meta-architected sandwich beams.

2.2. Quasi-static failure mechanism of architected sandwich beams 2.2.2. Core failure
The core failure in sandwich beams is identified by three failure
Sandwich beams under quasi-static 3-point bending fail in sev- modes: core shear yielding, core compressive yielding and core
eral modes: face-sheet compressive failure, face-sheet wrinkling, buckling.
core shear yielding, core compressive yielding and interfacial
(a) For core shear yielding, the maximum load per unit width is
failure between the core and face-sheets as presented in Table 4
expressed as [53]:
[28,53].

2.2.1. Face-sheet failure


The face-sheet failure in sandwich beams is identified by two failure P max ¼ 2Sc t c þ t f ð2Þ
modes: face-sheet compressive failure and face-sheet wrinkling
(i.e., local buckling). where Sc represents the core shear yield strength.

(a) For the face-sheet compressive failure, the maximum load per (b) For core compressive yielding, the maximum load per unit width
unit width (i.e., b) is expressed as [53]: is expressed as [53]:

Xf 2X c
P max ¼ ! !! ð1Þ P max ¼ ð3Þ
L 6 β

s  þ
4t f t f þ t c 4t 2f β
where Xc represents the core compressive yield strength.
where Xf represents the face-sheet compressive yield. In addition, β ¼ (c) For core buckling, FEA is used to capture this type of failure
qffiffiffiffiffiffiffi E f t 3f
Ec modes.
4D f , where k ¼ t c and Df ¼ 12 ; Df is the bending stiffness of the
4 k

face-sheet about its neutral axis and Ec and Ef are Young's modulus of
the core and longitudinal modulus of the face-sheets, respectively. 2.2.3. Adhesive failure
The interfacial failure may occur first when the interfacial strength is
(b) The face-sheet wrinkling occurs due to the local buckling related
lower than the core shear strength [53]. Opposed to conventional sand-
to the waviness of the face-sheet as well as the difference be-
wich composites, 3D printed sandwich structures do not require adhe-
tween the moduli of the face-sheet and core materials [53].
sion between face-sheet and cellular core, which dramatically reduces
Since sandwich beams have high-strength cores, high elastic
the possibility of debonding of the core and face-sheets [1].
moduli of the face-sheet and cellular core materials and small
It should be mentioned that the impact failure mechanisms have
amplitude in waviness of the face-sheet, the face-sheet wrinkling
been discussed in Section S3 of Supplementary Document.
failure mode does not occur.

2.3. Numerical modeling

The 3D explicit nonlinear finite element analysis (FEA) was conducted

using commercial software ANSYS Workbench 18.2 with AUTODYN
solver. Meta-sandwich beams under a quasi-static 3-point bending load

Table 4
Quasi-static 3-point bending failure modes of architected sandwich beams.

Failure type Failure mode Method

Face-sheet failure Face-sheet compressive failure Eq. (1)

Face-sheet wrinkling (local buckling) FEA
Core failure Core shear yielding Eq. (2)
Core compressive yielding Eq. (3)
Core buckling FEA
Adhesive failure Interfacial failure between core Not applicable for 3D
Fig. 5. Low-velocity impact test configuration of 3D printed architected meta-sandwich
and face-sheets printed sandwiches
plates.
184 H. Yazdani Sarvestani et al. / Materials and Design 160 (2018) 179–193

Loading head Fixed in x- and y-directions Impactor

Face sheet
Fixed support

3D-printed core

(a) (b)

Fig. 6. Finite element models for (a) 3-point bending and (b) Impact tests.

and meta-sandwich plates under a low-velocity impact were simulated,
as shown in Fig. 6. The finite element modeling included defining the ge-
ometry, contacts and material properties, discretizing the medium and
applying loads and the boundary conditions. For 3-point bending analysis,
the fixed supporting rods and the loading head were made of steel with
the radii of 10 mm. The loading was applied by assigning a finite displace-
ment to the top cylinder. For the low-velocity impact, the hemispheric
impactor was defined as a perfectly rigid body. The dynamic loading
was applied by assigning an initial velocity to the impactor. The contacts
between supports, impactor and sandwich structures were considered
to be frictionless. The stress-strain relation of PLA was considered to be
elastic-perfectly plastic based on Table 3. The face-sheets and the core
were discretized with tetrahedral and hexahedral elements; a conver-
gence study was conducted to avoid mesh size dependency. To consider
the failure in the impact analysis, the maximum equivalent plastic strain
criterion was used. Whenever the stress state of an element of the mate-
rials reached the predefined failure criterion, the element was failed and
removed from analysis, consequently. In addition, geometric nonlinearity
was adopted to capture large deformation mechanism of the meta-
sandwich structures. It should be noted that the gravitational force was
negligible compared to the force applied on the impactor.
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Energy absorption, flexural stiffness and failure mechanism of meta-
sandwich beams
3.1.1. Verification
Fig. 7 presents the comparison of force-displacement curves of 3D
printed meta-sandwich beams (including Isomax, octet and cubic
cores) under 3-point bending obtained by experimental tests and non-
linear static FEA. Excellent agreement can be observed in the force-
displacement curves between the numerical and experimental results
for displacement range up to the yielding of the meta-sandwich

(a)

(b)

(c)

Fig. 7. (a) Experimental and FEA force-displacement curves of 3D printed architected meta-sandwich beams including Isomax, octet and cubic cores with the relative densities of 30% and
50%, (b) Experimental deformed shapes and (c) The corresponding FEA meta-sandwich beams.
 H. Yazdani Sarvestani et al. / Materials and Design 160 (2018) 179–193 185

Table 5 when subjected to air or elevated environmental conditions. Since the

Comparison between FEA and experimental data of meta-sandwich beams (7 × 1 × 1 unit tensile test on dogbone coupons and the flexure and impact tests have
cells).
been conducted at different time, this can be another reason for slight
Core architecture Maximum load (kN) Flexural stiffness difference between numerical results (obtained based on experimental
(kN/mm) data found by tensile test on 3D printed dogbane coupons) and experi-
FEA Experiment FEA Experiment mental data.
ρ = 30% Isomax 4.57 4.56 2.21 2.11 During the 3-point bending test, the platen struts are subjected to
Octet 4.84 4.82 2.29 2.24 tension, compression, or bending, a complex stress state which is not
Cubic 5.10 5.09 2.11 2.02 well-captured in a simple elastic-perfectly plastic material model. An-
ρ = 50% Isomax 6.87 6.85 3.02 2.90 isotropy, porosity and imperfections caused by 3D printing should also
Octet 6.94 6.92 2.91 2.84
Cubic 6.94 6.93 3.00 2.95
be considered in the numerical simulation to obtain results closer to ex-
perimental data on 3D printed sandwich structures. These results sug-
gest the possibility of tailoring core topology of lightweight sandwich
beams with less than 5% error. After yielding FEA results and experi- structures to achieve desirable flexural properties for certain engineer-
mental data are not matched due to using the elastic-perfectly plastic ing applications.
constitutive law considered for FEA. As displacement increases, the ex-
perimental results show the failures of platen struts leading to signifi- 3.1.2. Quasi-static energy absorption performance
cant drops in the force-displacement curves, a phenomenon which is Fig. 8 presents the experimental load-deflection curves for dif-
not captured by FEA since any fracture criteria is not taken into account ferent 3D printed meta-sandwich beams composed of 7 × 1 × 1
for the analysis of meta-sandwich beams. Fig. 7b shows the deformed unit cells (Ls = 3). The experimental data shows that the core topol-
configurations in the experiment; while Fig. 7c shows the correspond- ogy has a significant role on the load-deflection curves. Cubic meta-
ing deformations obtained by FEA (von Mises stress distributions). sandwich beam has slightly the largest bending stiffness and max-
Table 5 presents the maximum load and flexural stiffness of meta- imum contact load, while the auxetic sandwich beam has the low-
sandwich beams (Ls = 3) obtained by the experiments and FEA. An ex- est bending stiffness showing the largest value of bending
cellent agreement can be observed with a difference up to 8%. The sim- deflection. It is found that the sandwich beam with the auxetic
ulated results are slightly higher than the experimentally values, which core has much lower flexural modulus and stress level at the same
can be emanates from different culprits: (a) The constitutive law as- deformation level compared to the other core topologies. Fig. 8b
sumed for numerical FEA has been assumed to be elastic-perfectly plas- shows the deformation configuration of the meta-sandwich
tic which can cause the difference between experimental and FEA beams with ρ = 30% right before the final failure. Face-sheet frac-
results especially for deformation ranged beyond the elastic domain. ture occurs in cubic (ρ = 30% and 50%), octet (ρ = 50%) and Isomax
(b) FDM 3D printing fabricated meta-sandwich panels by depositing (ρ = 50%) meta-sandwich beams before core failure causing drops
molten layers in z-direction. The final 3D printed products were layered in the load-deflection curves and local failure in meta-sandwich
in a microscopic layer; however, we considered perfectly bonded layers beams. The shear resistance or shear strength of the core materials
when we implemented finite element analysis for modeling the FDM plays an important role during the bending of sandwich structures.
3D printed products which slightly over predicted their stiffness and Interestingly, no fracture is observed in the auxetic sandwich
strength. In addition, the current FEA considered 3D printed PLA as iso- beams (ρ = 30% and 50%) up to the final failure. The buckling of
tropic materials; however, since the molten layers were deposited constructive struts, however, is seen in auxetic sandwich cores. In
based on the 3D printing toolpath, the 3D printed materials can be addition, the failure in the octet (ρ = 30%) and Isomax (ρ = 30%)
orthotropic which has been overlooked in the current analysis, and meta-sandwich beams includes the fractures of top face-sheets
(c) The 3D printed PLA polymers could slightly lose their properties and horizontal platen and buckling of vertical platen struts. The

Isomax Octet

Ls = 3
Cubic Auxetic
(a) (b)

Fig. 8. Bending characteristic of architected meta-sandwich beams with different core architectures. Beams are composed of 7 × 1 × 1 unit cells (Ls = 3): (a) Load-deflection curves and
(b) Deformed configurations of each meta-sandwich beam right before failure.
186 H. Yazdani Sarvestani et al. / Materials and Design 160 (2018) 179–193

Isomax Octet

Ls = 1.8
Cubic Auxetic

(a) (b)

Fig. 9. Bending characteristic of architected sandwich beams with different core architectures. Beams are composed of 7 × 2 × 2 unit cells (Ls = 1.8): (a) Load-deflection curves and
(b) Deformed configurations of each meta-sandwich beam right before failure.

(a) (b)
absorption

(c) (d)
Fig. 10. Bending properties of the 3D printed meta-sandwich beams composed of 7 × 1 × 1 unit cells (Ls = 3): (a) Bending stiffness, (b) Maximum load, (c) Displacement at maximum load
and (d) Energy absorption.
 H. Yazdani Sarvestani et al. / Materials and Design 160 (2018) 179–193 187

(a) (b)

absorption

(c) (d)

Fig. 11. Bending properties of the 3D printed meta-sandwich beams composed of 7 × 2 × 2 unit cells (Ls = 1.8): (a) Bending stiffness, (b) Maximum load, (c) Displacement at maximum
load and (d) Energy absorption.

buckling phenomenon does not result in a catastrophic failure; in-
stead the buckled cellular core enables the sandwich structure to
absorb energy under larger deformation. Therefore, global failure
mode controls the deformation of auxetic (ρ = 30% and 50%),
octet (ρ = 30%) and Isomax (ρ = 30%) sandwich beams. However,
it should be noted that the core deformations in Isomax, octet and
cubic sandwich beams are irreversible after unloading.
Experimental 3-point bending load-deflection curves for dif-
ferent architected 3D printed meta-sandwich beams composed
of 7 × 2 × 2 unit cells (Ls = 1.8) are presented in Fig. 9. The de-
formed shapes of the meta-sandwich beams with ρ = 30%, right before
the final failure, are shown in Fig. 9b. The Isomax meta-sandwich beam
shows the largest bending stiffness and maximum contact load, while
the auxetic core sandwich beam has the lowest bending stiffness and

Table 6
Comparison between the flexural stiffness of meta-sandwich beams obtained by 3-point bending experiment, theoretical formulation and FEA of rotated cubic cores.

Cell density and type Flexural stiffness (kN/mm)

Experimental data Theoretical formulation FEA

7 × 1 × 1 (Ls = 3) ρ = 0.3 Isomax 2.11 2.35 2.21

Octet 2.24 2.39 2.29
Cubic 2.02 2.25 θ = 0° θ = 15° θ = 30° θ = 45°
2.11 1.89 1.71 1.52
ρ = 0.5 Isomax 2.90 3.15 3.02
Octet 2.84 3.04 2.91
Cubic 2.95 3.18 θ = 0° θ = 15° θ = 30° θ = 45°
3.00 2.74 2.59 2.30
7 × 2 × 2 (Ls = 1.8) ρ = 0.3 Isomax 8.25 8.46 8.33
Octet 5.74 5.92 5.82
Cubic 5.73 5.95 θ = 0° θ = 15° θ = 30° θ = 45°
5.81 5.61 5.48 5.20
ρ = 0.5 Isomax 9.50 9.69 9.60
Octet 8.73 8.97 8.80
Cubic 5.83 6.01 θ = 0° θ = 15° θ = 30° θ = 45°
5.91 5.69 5.50 5.31
188 H. Yazdani Sarvestani et al. / Materials and Design 160 (2018) 179–193

Table 7
Comparison of the failure mechanisms obtained by theoretical formulations, FEA & experimental testing.

Cell density and type Failure mechanisms Methods

Experimental tests Formulations & FEA

7 × 1 × 1 (Ls = 3) ρ = 0.3 Isomax Core buckling & top face-sheet failure ✓ ✓

Octet Core buckling & top face-sheet failure ✓ ✓
Cubic Top face-sheet failure ✓ ✓
ρ = 0.5 Isomax Top face-sheet failure ✓ ✓
Octet Top face-sheet failure ✓ ✓
Cubic Top face-sheet failure ✓ ✓
7 × 2 × 1 (Ls = 1.8) ρ = 0.3 Isomax Core buckling following by failure in the top face-sheet ✓ ✓
Octet Core shear ✓ ✓
Cubic Core buckling following by failure in the bottom face-sheet ✓ –
ρ = 0.5 Isomax Core buckling following by failure in the top face-sheet ✓ ✓
Octet Core shear following by failure in the bottom face-sheet ✓ –
Cubic Core buckling following by failure in the bottom face-sheet ✓ –

the largest bending deflection. While core buckling is observed in cubic
(ρ = 30% and 50%) and auxetic (ρ = 30% and 50%) sandwich beams.
Core shear failure occurs in octet meta-sandwich beams (ρ = 30% and
50%). Combination of core buckling and core fracture occurs in
Isomax meta-sandwich beams (ρ = 30% and 50%). In addition, the
final failure for the auxetic (ρ = 30% and 50%), cubic (ρ = 30% and
50%) and octet (ρ = 50%) meta-sandwich beams is due to a tensile
load in the lower face-sheet. On the other hand, the octet meta-
sandwich beam (ρ = 30%) ultimately breaks under the core shear
failure mode and the final failure for Isomax meta-sandwich beams
(ρ = 30% and 50%) is due to a compressive load in the top face-
sheet. For the span-to-thickness ratio of Ls = 1.8, cubic and auxetic
sandwich beams show larger deformation before the final failure
compared to the other architected sandwich beams, which is due
to the fact that core buckling is more dominant in the failure
behavior.
Fig. 10 presents experimental results for bending stiffness, maxi-
mum load, displacement at maximum load and energy absorption (up
to final catastrophic failure) of meta-sandwich beams composed of 7
× 1 × 1 unit cells (Ls = 3) of four core designs and for two relative den-
sities of 30% and 50%. By increasing the relative density, the maximum
force, bending stiffness and displacement at maximum load increase
significantly for all meta-sandwich beams; however, energy absorption
only increases for the auxetic sandwich beams. Interestingly, the energy
absorption of Isomax, octet and cubic meta-sandwich beams with the
relative density of ρ = 30% are higher than their counterparts with
the relative density of ρ = 30%. The meta-sandwich beams with higher
relative density are stiffer and stronger but more brittle. Therefore,
larger bending deflection occurs which leads to a higher energy absorp-
tion. At any given relative density, octet, cubic, and Isomax meta-
sandwich beams provide a larger maximum force and a larger bending
stiffness than the auxetic sandwich beam. Comparing the bending prop-
erties of four 3D printed sandwich beams, it is found that octet and
Isomax sandwich beams exhibit a better performance over the cubic
or auxetic sandwich beams. Isomax sandwich beam has the same
level of response forces but with smaller energy absorption ability com-
pared to the octet sandwich beam. Moreover, while the global deforma-
tion is more dominant in the failure mechanism of Isomax meta-
sandwich beams, octet and cubic meta-sandwich beams are more
prone to failures caused by local deformations.
Fig. 11 shows the experimental results for the bending stiffness,
maximum load, displacement at maximum load and energy absorption

Isomax Octet Cubic

Ls = 3 = 0.3 (Core buckling & top face-sheet = 0.3 (Core buckling & top face-sheet
= 0.3 (Top face-sheet failure)
failure) failure)

= 0.5 (Top face-sheet failure) = 0.5 (Top face-sheet failure) = 0.5 (Top face-sheet failure)

= 0.3 (Core buckling following by failure = 0.3 (Core buckling following by

= 0.3 (Core shear)
in the top face-sheet) failure in the bottom face-sheet)
Ls = 1.8

= 0.5 (Core buckling following by failure = 0.5 (Core shear following by failure = 0.5 (Core shear following by failure
in the top face-sheet) in the bottom face-sheet) in the bottom face-sheet)

Fig. 12. Failure mechanism of architected sandwich beams under a quasi-static load.
 H. Yazdani Sarvestani et al. / Materials and Design 160 (2018) 179–193 189

3J 40J

Returned energy

Experiment
Experiment
FEM
FEM
Absorbed energy

Fig. 13. Experimental and FEA energy time-histories of 3D printed Isomax meta-sandwich plates with the relative density of ρ = 30% for 3 J and 40 J impact energies.

of meta-sandwich beams composed of 7 × 2 × 2 unit cells (Ls = 1.8). The equivalent flexural rigidity of the rectangular beam, as shown in
While the cubic meta-sandwich beam with higher span-to-thickness Fig. 1a, is [3]:
ratio (Ls = 3) shows the lowest energy absorption among all meta-
sandwich beams, for the lower span-to-thickness ratio (Ls = 1.8), it
2
E f bt 3f Ec bt 3c E f bt f t c þ t f
shows the highest energy. This can be justified by the buckling of the ðEIÞeq ¼ þ þ ð4Þ
6 12 2
vertical platen struts in cubic unit cells instead of fracture, leading to ab-
sorption of higher energy during the loading.
Three terms, introduced in the right hand side of Eq. (4), describe the
bending stiffness of the faces and the core about their own centroid, and
3.1.3. Flexural stiffness the bending stiffness of the faces about the centroid of the sandwich
In this section, the experimental and theoretical studies on the flex- beam, respectively. It should be mentioned that Young's modulus of
ural stiffness of the 3D printed meta-sandwich beams are presented. the core of sandwich beams is extracted from reference [44]; for other
The flexural stiffness of sandwich beams is calculated from the equiva- core topologies, the computational homogenization technique [7], e.g.
lent flexural rigidity (EI)eq and the equivalent shear rigidity (AG)eq. standard mechanics or asymptotic homogenization, can be used to

3J impact 40J impact

Isomax Octet Cubic Isomax Octet Cubic

J/kg J/kg
4558 4078 3568 3058 2548 2039 1529 1019 509 1.701e-5 34308 30496 26684 22872 19060 15248 11436 7624 3812 0.0020

Strain energy Strain energy

Fig. 14. Energy time-history of experimental impact test on 3D printed meta-sandwich plates of alternative core topology and relative density for 3 J and 40 J impacts.
190 H. Yazdani Sarvestani et al. / Materials and Design 160 (2018) 179–193

(a) (b)

Isomax Cubic Isomax Cubic

Octet Auxetic Octet Auxetic

m Pa
0.00078 0.00069 0.00060 0.00052 0.00043 0.00034 0.00026 0.00017 0.000086 0 2.98e7 2.65e7 2.32e7 1.98e7 1.65e7 1.32e7 9.94e6 6.62e6 3.31e6 797.66

Deformation Equivalent stress

Fig. 15. Impact properties of 3D printed meta-sandwich plates with Isomax, octet, cubic and auxetic cellular cores under a 3 J low-velocity impact: (a) Energy absorption and (b) Maximum
load.

obtain the effective properties. Young's modulus of the face-sheet is is involved in the load bearing characteristics of the meta-sandwich
equal to PLA Young's modulus. The equivalent shear rigidity is defined beam.
as [46]:
3.1.4. Failure mechanism

2
b t c þ t f Gc The failure mechanisms were detected based on the formulations
ðAGÞeq ¼ ð5Þ
tc developed in Section 2.2 and FEA. We have also compared predic-
tions with the experimental observation, reported in Table 7. It is
where the shear modulus of the core Gc is obtained by considering a pe- worth mentioning that the face-sheet compressive yield strength,
riodic core under a shear strain in FEA [44]. When a load P is applied, the used in Eq. (1), is obtained from the literature that is Xf = 93.8 MPa
deflections δ of the sandwich beam is the summation of the bending [54]. In addition, the core shear yield strength (Sc) in Eq. (2) is calcu-
P max
(δb) and shear (δs) components: lated using ðtþt c Þb
[50], where Pmax is obtained based on FEA of meta-
sandwich beams under 3-point bending loads (See Table 5). Finally,
Pa3 Pa the core compressive yield strengths (Xc) are obtained by FEA of pe-
δ ¼ δb þ δs ¼ þ ð6Þ riodic cubic, octet and Isomax unit cells under a distributed compres-
48ðEI Þeq 4ðAGÞeq
sive load. As presented in Table 7, theoretical formulation and FEA
detect the same failure mechanism as occurred in experiments for
Using Eqs. (4)–(6), the theoretical flexural stiffness of the meta- most of the cases. For cubic (ρ = 30% and 50%) and octet (ρ =
48ðEIÞeq ðAGÞeq
sandwich beam is Pδ ¼ a3 ðAGÞ . Table 6 presents the comparison 50%) meta-sandwich beams, the failure starts with core buckling, de-
eq þ12aðEIÞeq

between the flexural stiffness obtained by the theoretical formulation,
FEA and experimental testing. The theoretical flexural stiffness is up to
12% higher than the experimental data.
As mentioned in Section 2.1.1, as oppose to cubic and octet cells,
Isomax cells are mechanically isotropic. To show this advantage of
Isomax over octet and cubic cells, we simulated cubic meta-
sandwich beams out of 15°, 30° and 45° rotated cells (in-plane rota-
tions, See Section S.4 of Supplementary Document) for both ρ = 30%
and 50% under 3-point bending load. Table 6 presents the flexural
stiffness of rotated cubic sandwich beams compared to regular
cubic beams (for Ls = 1.8 and 3). By increasing the rotation angle
of the cubic core, the flexural stiffness decreases since less material
tected by FEA, followed by failure in the bottom face-sheet due to a
maximum tensile stress. This failure mode is not covered by the the-
oretical developments making it incapable of capturing the phenom-
enon occurred during the experiments. The failure mechanisms are
illustrated in Fig. 12.
3.2. Energy absorption of meta-sandwich plates
3.2.1. Verification
To verify the validity of FEA analysis, the numerical simulation result
for the energy absorption time-history of 3D printed Isomax meta-
sandwich plates with the relative density of ρ = 30% is compared
 H. Yazdani Sarvestani et al. / Materials and Design 160 (2018) 179–193
(a)
Isomax Cubic
Octet Auxetic
0.0077 0.0068 0.0059 0.0051 0.0042 0.0034 0.0025
Deformation
Fig. 16. Impact properties of the 3D printed meta-sandwich plates including Isomax, octet, cubic and auxetic cores under a 40 J impact energy: (a) Energy absorption and (b) Maximum
load.
with the experimental data in Fig. 13 for the impact energies of 3 J and
40 J. Good agreements are found between the results of experimental
tests and numerical analyses with a difference less than 8%. The reasons
why the simulated results are slightly higher than the experimental
data were mentioned in Section 3.1.1. In the energy absorption-time
history plot, the amounts of absorbed and returned (released) energies
during the impact test can be observed. The absorbed energy is the en-
ergy mostly dissipated by failure mechanisms, e.g. delamination [55]
and cracking [56]. The returned (released) energy is the elastic energy.
Herein, we define the energy absorption percentage based on the fol-
Absorbed energy
lowing ratio: Maximum impact energy % [19]. The comparison of energy ab-
sorption percentage of meta-sandwich plates with the relative
densities of ρ = 30% and 50% subjected to 3 J and 40 J impacts evaluated
by the experiments and FEA are presented in Section S6 of Supplemen-
tary Document.
3.2.2. Energy absorption performance
Fig. 14 shows the time-history of experimental energy absorption of
3D printed meta-sandwich plates under 3 J and 40 J low-velocity impact
tests for alternative cellular core configuration and relative density. Al-
most all meta-sandwich plates show the same energy absorption capa-
bility for the low impact energy, while the different cores show
dissimilar energy absorption performance for higher values of impact
energy.
The experimental results of the energy absorption and maximum
load of meta-sandwich plates (ρ = 30% and 50%) subjected to a 3 J im-
pact load are presented in Fig. 15. At low impact energy tests, Isomax,
octet and cubic meta-sandwich plates show the same energy absorption
191
(b)
Isomax Cubic
Octet Auxetic
m Pa
0.0017 0.0008 0 4.36e7 3.88e7 3.39e7 2.91e7 2.42e7 1.94e7 1.45e7 9.72e6 4.87e6 21641
Equivalent stress
performance which is higher than that of the auxetic sandwich plate. On
the other hand, the magnitude of maximum contact load for Isomax,
octet and cubic meta-sandwich plates are not the same. While the
cubic meta-sandwich plate shows the maximum contact load, auxetic
sandwich plates exhibit the minimum magnitude of the contact load
for both 30% and 50% relative densities. The impact energy applied to
the sandwich plates is primarily absorbed through failure and damage
of core and face-sheets. As shown in Fig. 15, the maximum contact
load increases significantly by increasing the relative density. However,
energy absorption capability of Isomax and auxetic sandwich plates ei-
ther stays almost the same or marginally drops. This observation corre-
sponds to the increased stiffness caused by increasing the relative
density. The deformation configuration and equivalent stress distribu-
tion on the cross section of the meta-sandwich plates under a 3 J impact
are shown in Fig. 15.
Fig. 16 shows the experimental results of the energy absorption ca-
pability and maximum load of meta-sandwich plates (ρ = 30% and
50%) subjected to a 40 J impact load. For the higher impact energy,
Isomax meta-sandwich plate shows the highest energy absorption ca-
pability for the sandwich plates with the relative density of ρ = 30%.
However, for the higher relative densities, octet meta-sandwich plate il-
lustrates the highest energy absorption capability. The reason is both
Isomax and octet meta-sandwich plates are controlled by a local failure
mode. The buckling of vertical platen struts occurs more in Isomax core
compared to octet ones. The buckling makes the sandwich plate deform
further and absorb more energy. By increasing the relative density, octet
meta-sandwich plates show higher energy absorption capability than
Isomax meta-sandwich plate. This is due to the fact that Isomax core
is stiffer than the octet core, leading to less global deformation. In
192 H. Yazdani Sarvestani et al. / Materials and Design 160 (2018) 179–193
addition, by increasing the relative density, vertical walls inside the
Isomax become more and more supported by the inclined walls and
therefore less buckling is possible inside the cells of the core.
The octet meta-sandwich plate with ρ = 30% has a lower max-
imum contact force under the impact load, which can have applica-
tions in minimizing the impact force applied to the structures
protected with 3D printed shock absorber. It is worth mentioning
that auxetic sandwich plates have lower energy absorption capa-
bility than the other sandwich plates. In addition, the energy ab-
sorption capability of Isomax meta-sandwich plate decreases by
increasing the relative density, since local failure is a more domi-
nate failure mode for higher relative densities than the global fail-
ure which occurs in lower densities.
4. Conclusions
A numerical methodology, validated by experimental testing, was
developed in this study to optimize the quasi-static and dynamic energy
absorption performance of a new generation of 3D printed lightweight
sandwich structures made of metamaterial cores. Four different core to-
pologies were 3D printed out of PLA and tested under quasi-static
3-point bending and dynamic low-velocity impact conditions. The
structural responses, failure mechanisms, flexural stiffness, multi-hit
and energy absorption capabilities of these meta-sandwich structures
were compared with their counterparts made of an auxetic cellular
core. It is found that the core topology and geometrical parameters of
the meta-sandwich structures play significant roles on their failure
mechanism and energy absorption capability. As an example, for Ls =
3, octet meta-sandwich beams with ρ = 30% showed a higher quasi-
static energy absorption capability than the other cell topologies,
while the contact load during the 3-point bending test was also higher
than the meta-sandwich beams made of the other cell topologies. How-
ever, for Ls = 1.8, Isomax and cubic meta-sandwich beams with ρ = 50%
showed a higher static energy absorption capability than the other
meta-sandwich beams. However, for dynamic energy absorption,
Isomax, octet and cubic meta-sandwich plates had almost the same
ability, all higher than the auxetic core for low impact energy. For higher
impact energy, octet meta-sandwich plates show higher energy absorp-
tion performance. Regarding the multi-hit capability, 3D printing direc-
tion plays an important role on multi-hit resistance of meta-sandwich
plates. The designed meta-sandwich structures can lead to significant
weight reduction with enhanced energy absorption capability for
engineered structural components.
Acknowledgments
A.H. Akbarzadeh acknowledges the financial support provided by
McGill University and Natural Science and Engineering Research Coun-
cil of Canada (NSERC) through NSERC Discovery Grant RGPIN-2016-
04716. H. Yazdani Sarvestani is supported by McGill University and an
FRQNT (Fonds de recherche Nature et technologies) postdoctoral fel-
lowship award. Authors also acknowledge the collaborations of Janic
Lauzon, Mathieu Lapointe, Jeremi Bussieres and Thomas Guinot from
Composites Development Center of Quebec (CDCQ) for conducting
3-point bending tests. We also appreciate discussions with Prof. R.
Boukhili and Ms. R. Ouadday at École Polytechnique de Montréal for
the low-velocity impact test results.
Author contributions
H. Yazdani Sarvestani contributes to design, analysis, performing
tests, interpreting the data and writing the manuscript.
A.H. Akbarzadeh contributes to the main idea of the paper, design,
interpreting the data and writing the manuscript.
A. Mirbolghasemi contributes to design, performing tests and writ-
ing the manuscript.
K. Hermenean contributes to optimized 3D printing of meta-
sandwich structures.
Appendix A. Supplementary data
Supplementary data to this article can be found online at https://doi.
org/10.1016/j.matdes.2018.08.061.
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