Study of Thermal Properties of Porous Polymeric Materials Based on Minimal Surfaces of Schwarz

Abstract

Study of Thermal Properties of Porous Polymeric Materials Based on Minimal Surfaces of Schwarz

Bragin D.M., Eremin A.V.

Incoming article date: 04.08.2023

In this study, the thermal properties of porous materials with the topology of triply periodic minimal surfaces (TPMS) of Schwarz are investigated. By generalizing the results of computational experiments, the dependencies of the thermophysical properties of TPMS materials on macrostructural parameters such as size and thickness of the elementary cell have been obtained. The properties of the most common thermoplastic polymers PETG, ABS, PLA, and PHP used in additive manufacturing have been explored. It is demonstrated that the thermal conductivity coefficients of the examined TPMS materials can be represented as a linear function of the dimensionless geometric parameter – the relative thickness of the elementary cell wall. By varying this parameter, and consequently the geometric structure of the porous medium, it is possible to obtain a material with desired thermophysical properties. Verification of the obtained finite element method results is conducted based on the analysis of mesh convergence of solutions.

Keywords: effective thermal conductivity; heat transfer; porous material; porosity; thermoplastic polymer; ordered macrostructure; Schwarz minimal surface; triply periodic surface