MaSMaker: An open-source, portable software to create and integrate maze-like surfaces into arbitrary geometries

Abstract

Triply Periodic Minimal Surfaces (TPMS) are smooth, periodic surfaces along the three spatial directions, that partition a volume into two non-self-intersecting maze-like regions. Minimal surface meaning that its mean curvature equals zero. In recent years, TPMS structures have raised attention of the scientific community due to their potential applications, not only to lighten structural components, but also to be used in energy applications as absorbers and heat sinks for thermal management, medical applications as porous structures for scaffolds and tissue applications on implants, among others. Nevertheless, from the design point of view, the integration of TPMS into organic or any arbitrary geometry for particular applications usually faces difficulties associated with the tools available to reach this goal. In this work, an advanced computational tool is presented to automate the design and integration process of TPMS structures into arbitrary geometries. MaSMaker allows to control the main parameters of this kind of structures. Two versions of the tool are shared within the repository, the first version is an executable file with a GUI (Graphical User Interface) that allows the users to easily integrate TPMS, and in a second version, the source code that will allow advanced users to utilize MaSMaker as basis to develop their own implementations. Several illustrative examples about the use of MaSMaker are shown using different geometries, cell sizes and voxel resolutions.

Keywords

• TPMS
• Python
• Gyroid
• Additive manufacturing