Micromechanical finite element predictions of a reduced coefficient of thermal expansion for 3D periodic architectured interpenetrating phase composites

In this paper, the effective coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) of novel interpenetrating phase composites (IPCs) based on the mathematically-known triply periodic minimal surfaces (TPMS) is investigated. In these IPCs, different TPMS architectures are used as reinforcing solid sheets to produce composites with lower effective CTE. Several three-dimensional unit cells are generated and studied using the finite element method to estimate the effective CTE for various TPMS-based IPC architectures. The obtained results are compared with some analytical models and conventional composites. The proposed IPCs have shown promising results compared with the conventional composites.