Design of dual-phase lattice materials with balanced modulus, strength and energy absorption properties based on Sudoku arranged reinforcement phase distribution

•Distribution effect on the mechanical properties of dual-phase lattice is ascertained.•Balanced mechanical properties are achieved through Sudoku based lattice design.•A statistical parameter is defined to depict the distribution characteristics.•Scattered distribution of reinforcement cells is beneficial to the dual-phase lattice. In this paper, the effect of the distribution pattern of the reinforcement phase on the mechanical properties was studied for the simple-cubic matrix dual-phase lattices given the same second phase proportion. Two reinforcement phases, the body centered cubic and the face centered cubic cells, were investigated. Specifically, a novel distribution pattern of reinforcement phase inspired from Sudoku algorithm was proposed to design the dual-phase lattices with balanced elastic modulus, strength and energy absorption properties. Comparisons were made for mechanical performances of five types of distributions, i.e., the layer distribution, column distribution, Sudoku distribution, random distribution and symmetry distribution through extensive finite element simulations. The results indicate that the scattered distribution of the reinforcement phase is beneficial to the investigated mechanical properties. To guide the design of dual-phase lattices, a parameter called degree of concentration is introduced to describe the distribution of reinforcement phase. In general, the mechanical properties are inversely related to degree of concentration. The proposed Sudoku dual-phase lattice possesses zero degree of concentration along any of the three principle directions, thus exhibits advantageous isotropic mechanical properties. This paper provides a new avenue for the design of multi-phase lattice materials.