Compression behaviour of an extremely lightweight structure with a gyroid core used for bridge bearings

This article reports an extremely lightweight structure used as a sandwich core for bridge bearings due to their superior mechanical properties, such as uniform stress distribution with no concentration stresses at the intersection of the structure, lightweight, rigidity, and energy absorption. The structure is based on triply periodic minimal surfaces (TPMS) conceived by observing the scales of butterflies’ wings. The compression behaviour of this innovative structure used in these typical bearings is not well-known and has never been fully investigated. Therefore, it is important to comprehend their compression behaviour and also to identify a failure mode of these bridge bearings under compression. A gyroid unit cell finite element model used in the sandwich core for bridge bearing application is examined with a computational method. The numerical investigation shows the compression mechanisms and provides the failure mode, which is important in establishing relationships between its mechanical performance and geometry. The results have shown that the model exibits a stretch-dominated and uniform stress distribution behaviour under compression. These results can be implemented to better generate informed lightweight structure designs for bridge bearings which are subjected to different compression conditions.