Fracture toughness of hierarchical lattice materials

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Volume Title

A1 Alkuperäisartikkeli tieteellisessä aikakauslehdessä

Date

2025-06-15

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Mcode

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Language

en

Pages

14

Series

International Journal of Solids and Structures, Volume 316

Abstract

Natural materials, such as wood and bone, have a high fracture toughness and this is often attributed to their hierarchical microstructures. While previous studies have shown that hierarchy can increase the buckling strength of lattice materials, a detailed analysis of its impact on fracture toughness is missing. Here, we used analytical modeling and finite element simulations to predict the mode I and mode II fracture toughness of three hierarchical topologies: hexagonal, triangular, and Kagome lattices. Hierarchy significantly improved the fracture toughness of the bending-dominated hexagonal lattice. Notably, the hierarchical hexagonal lattice has a fracture toughness KIC that scales linearly with relative density ρ̄, whereas its non-hierarchical counterpart has KIC∝ρ̄2. In contrast, hierarchy did not improve the toughness of stretching-dominated triangular and Kagome lattices. Hierarchy did, however, modify the behavior of a Kagome lattice: its hierarchical design has a toughness that scales linearly with relative density, whereas KIC∝ρ̄ for its non-hierarchical counterpart. This work presents scaling laws for the fracture toughness of hierarchical lattices, enabling the design of tough architectures at very low densities.

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Publisher Copyright: © 2025 The Authors

Keywords

Finite Element simulation, Fracture toughness, Hierarchy, Honeycomb, Lattice material

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Citation

Leraillez, A & St-Pierre, L 2025, ' Fracture toughness of hierarchical lattice materials ', International Journal of Solids and Structures, vol. 316, 113374 . https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijsolstr.2025.113374