A novel bio-inspired design method for porous structures: Variable-periodic Voronoi tessellation

This paper introduces a novel approach, namely Variable-Periodic Voronoi Tessellation (VPVT), for the bio-inspired design of porous structures. The method utilizes distributed points defined by a variable-periodic function to generate Voronoi tessellation patterns, aligning with a wide diversity of artificial or natural cellular structures. In this VPVT design method, the truss-based architecture can be fully characterized by design variables, such as frequency factors, thickness factors. This approach enables the optimal design of porous structures for both mechanical performance and functionality. The varied, anisotropic cell shapes and sizes of VPVT porous structures provide significantly greater design flexibility compared to typical isotropic porous structures. In addition, the VPVT method not only can design micro-macro multiscale materials, but is also applicable for the design of meso-macro scale truss-based porous structures, such as architecture constructions, biomedical implants, and aircraft frameworks. This work employs a Surrogate-assisted Differential Evolution (SaDE) method to perform the optimization process. Numerical examples and experiments validate that the proposed design achieves about 51.1% and 47.8% improvement in compliance performance and damage strength, respectively, than existing studies. •A novel bio-inspired design method with a function-driven mechanism, named VPVT, is proposed for designing porous structures.•VPVT mimics the irregular yet efficient features observed in nature to design materials and structures.•VPVT method offers excellent connectivity, topological tailoring capabilities, and extensible for modular design.•An efficient structural optimization workflow has been developed for optimizing multiple performances of VPVT structure.