ABSTRACT This study investigated the mechanical properties and deformation behavior of a novel 3D‐printed tubular triply periodic minimal surface (TPMS) structure with a gyroid unit cell, fabricated via digital light processing (DLP). The mechanical response was evaluated experimentally and numerically to assess the effects of cell height (14–30 mm) and the number of cells per circular period (4–10) on force‐displacement, specific stiffness, and specific energy absorption (SEA). Numerical simulations showed excellent agreement with experimental results ( R 2 = 0.9799), with a maximum force difference of only 5.7%. The force‐displacement behavior exhibited geometry‐dependent stages: structures with smaller cell heights or fewer circumferential cells displayed two‐stage deformation, while increasing these parameters introduced a third stage associated with local buckling. The gyroid TPMS structures demonstrated exceptional specific stiffness, reaching 277.7 N/mm g for the 30 mm cell height with 10 cells per circular period. Increasing the number of cells per circular period enhanced stiffness by 1.8 times and SEA by 2.1 times. Stress ‐strain analyses revealed that the interplay between gap closure, local softening, and load redistribution governs deformation and buckling onset. This study provided a design framework for gyroid TPMS metamaterials with tunable stiffness and energy absorption through geometric optimization, offering significant potential for lightweight crashworthy applications in intelligent manufacturing field.
Zhang et al. (Wed,) studied this question.