Page 32 - MSAM-3-4

Materials Science in

Additive Manufacturing

ORIGINAL RESEARCH ARTICLE
Functionally graded TPMS gyroid structures for

additive manufacturing of non-pneumatic tires

1
Avez Shaikh 1 , Ankit Saxena 1 , Jacklyn Griffis , Kazi Shahed 2 ,and
1,2
Guha Manogharan *
1 Department of Mechanical Engineering, Pennsylvania State University, Pennsylvania, United
States of America
2 Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering, Pennsylvania State University,
Pennsylvania, United States of America

Abstract

Non-pneumatic tires (NPTs) have been of interest for extreme environmental
applications involving uneven surfaces, such as military reconnaissance and space
exploration. Despite the advantages over pneumatic tires, NPTs are unsuitable for mass
production due to higher cost, increased weight, and more importantly, design and
manufacturing complexities through traditional manufacturing methods. In this work,
we present a novel NPT design that overcomes these challenges by incorporating
additively manufactured (AM) minimal surface lattices in the elastic structure of the tire
to provide structural stability in radial and lateral directions. More importantly, minimal
*Corresponding author: surface lattices can be additively manufactured without the need for support materials.
Guha Manogharan This enables on-demand manufacturing under extreme environments without the need
(gum53@psu.edu) for complicated machinery and human involvement. This study thoroughly examines
Citation: Shaikh A, Saxena A, the deformed shape and force-displacement behavior of spokes featuring cylindrically
Griffis J, Shahed K, Manogharan designed gyroid triply periodic minimal surface (TPMS) under vertical compression
G. Functionally graded TPMS through both numerical simulations and experimental testing. The research evaluates
gyroid structures for additive
manufacturing of non-pneumatic three sub-scale NPTs with varying sheet thicknesses in the minimal surface layers,
tires. Mater Sci Add Manuf. focusing on both global stiffness and local deformation. Digital image correlation
2024;3(4):5022.
doi: 10.36922/msam.5022 (DIC) was used to provide detailed insights into the deformation behavior and local
deformation characteristics of these lattices, laying design guidelines for designing
Received: October 2, 2024 variable stiffness in NPT that can be used for extreme conditions. Finite element
Revised: October 22, 2024 analysis (FEA) is conducted to validate the experimental findings, demonstrating
Accepted: October 23, 2024 that the functionally graded TPMS with varying sheet thicknesses exhibits a 20 – 53%
increase in stiffness compared to uniform thickness designs. This confirms the superior
Published Online: November 22, performance of the graded lattices over uniform-thickness NPTs. Findings from this
2024
study can be leveraged to further develop a design-AM workflow for tire performance
Copyright: © 2024 Author(s). of NPTs that could be deployed in uneven terrains through remote AM manufacturing.
This is an Open-Access article
distributed under the terms of the
Creative Commons Attribution Keywords: Additive manufacturing; Digital image correlation; Non-pneumatic tires; Triply
License, permitting distribution, periodic minimal surface; On-demand manufacturing; Extreme terrains
and reproduction in any medium,
provided the original work is
properly cited.
Publisher’s Note: AccScience
Publishing remains neutral with 1. Introduction
regard to jurisdictional claims in
published maps and institutional Traditional pneumatic tires are ubiquitous in our daily lives. However, their application
affiliations. in extreme environments is limited. This is due to the dependence of tire performance

Volume 3 Issue 4 (2023) 1 doi: 10.36922/msam.5022