3D Printed Meta-Sandwich Structures:

Failure Mechanism, Energy Absorption and Multi-hit Capability

H. Yazdani Sarvestani1, A.H. Akbarzadeh1, 2*, A. Mirbolghasemi1, K. Hermenean3
1
AM3L Laboratory, Department of Bioresource Engineering, McGill University, Island of Montreal, QC H9X
3V9 Canada
2
Department of Mechanical Engineering, McGill University, Montreal, QC H3A 0C3 Canada
3
MACHINA Corp., Edmonton, AB T6H 2H3 Canada

Abstract
A new class of lightweight and 3D printable architected sandwich structures, named as meta-
sandwich structures, has been introduced. These lightweight sandwich structures, which have
been made of mechanical metamaterials as the core, show many advantages such as high
stiffness-to-weight ratio and high energy absorption capability. In this paper, finite element
simulation and experimental testing were implemented to evaluate the structural durability of 3D
printed meta-sandwiches under quasi-static flexure and low-velocity impact tests. We
specifically investigated the failure mechanism, energy absorption and multi-hit capability of 3D
printed polymeric meta-sandwich structures made of cubic, octet and Isomax cellular cores.
Three-point bending experiments on 3D printed meta-sandwich beams were conducted to
evaluate their flexural stiffness and quasi-static energy absorption, followed by low-velocity
impact tests to determine their dynamic energy absorption and multi-hit capabilities. Analytical
formulations were also developed to capture the failure mechanism in the architected sandwich
structures. It is found that the core topology and geometrical parameters have significant effects
on failure mechanism and energy absorption of meta-sandwich structures. For example, Isomax
meta-sandwich structures have high quasi-static and dynamic impact energy absorption
capabilities.

Keywords: Architected meta-sandwich structures; 3D printing; Metamaterials; Failure

mechanism; Energy absorption.

*
Address correspondence to: hamid.akbarzadeh@mcgill.ca, Tel: +1 (514) 398-7680.
https://www.mcgill.ca/bioeng/faculty-and-staff/abdolhamid-akbarzadeh-shafaroudi.

1
1. Introduction
Lightweight sandwich structures are nowadays extensively used in aerospace, marine,
automobile, windmill and building industrial sectors, mainly due to their excellent
multifunctional properties such as high flexural stiffness, thermal insulation and high energy-
absorption capabilities [1, 2]. Sandwich structures consist of three components: two thin solid
face-sheets with high flexural stiffness at top and bottom surfaces separated by a relatively thick
lightweight core. The lightweight core connects the face-sheets with a little increase in weight,
providing a high bending and buckling resistance [3] and excellent shear stiffness and energy
absorption capability [4]. The optimized lightweight sandwich structures are made of architected
cellular cores, which carry transverse shear and compression loads, and solid face-sheets which
carry in-plane load and flexure [1]. Concerning limited energy and material resources,
lightweight micro-architected sandwich structures are of growing interest since they can
simultaneously reduce the weight of structural elements while satisfying multiple functionalities,
e.g. structural rigidity [5], heat exchanging [6] and electrical properties [7]. Recent advances in
manufacturing, e.g. additive manufacturing (or 3D printing) and laser cutting, have enabled
manufacturing of architected cellular cores of free-form two-dimensional (2D) and three-
dimensional (3D) topologies, which are impossible to be fabricated by conventional
manufacturing processes of sandwich structures, e.g. extrusion, expansion and corrugation [8].
Opposed to foaming process (e.g. compression molding, slabstock, casting and solid-gas eutectic
solidification [3]), which leads to manufacturing of porous materials with random morphologies,
3D printing offers a robust manufacturing process for controlling the microarchitecture of
cellular materials made of polymers, composites and metals which makes 3D printed materials
applicable in medicine as a scaffold for regeneration of tissues and organs [9], in the
electromagnetic industry as interference shielding [10-12], in space sectors for satellite structures
[13] or in thermal management as heat exchangers [14]. Among advantages of 3D printing, the
programmability of multifunctional properties over a multiple length scale through controlling
architecture and geometrical features of cellular cores [15-18] can be highlighted, however
reliability of 3D printed components is yet to be examined as 3D printing commonly leads to
manufacturing defects [19, 20].
The structural and energy absorption performance as well as failure mechanism of a cellular
sandwich structure depend on its constituent material, geometrical parameters and core cell

2
topology. Among all possible topologies, conventional honeycombs have been widely studied
[21-23]. Sandwich structures with conventional honeycomb cores are stiff and lightweight and
are capable of absorbing high energy under impact loads and shockwaves, for example for
applications in sports goods (e.g. helmet) and vehicles (e.g. bumpers) [24, 25]. However, they
commonly suffer from the closed-cell architecture of their core due to gas retention and moisture
trapping within their core [1]. Moisture trapped in the closed-cell cores increases the weight of
sandwich structures and shifts their center of gravity, a culprit which can be diminished by open-
cell cores [1] such as truss-like lattices [26, 27]. Compared to regular honeycombs, it has been
shown that lattice cores can significantly increase the buckling resistance and energy absorption
capability of sandwich structures [28, 29]. Another type of cellular cores is auxetic cells which
have been examined in recent papers [30, 31] due to their unusual deformation mechanism, i.e.,
negative Poisson’s ratio. The structural responses of sandwich structures with auxetic cores were
analyzed under small deformation [32, 33], large deformation [34, 35], bending [36, 37] and
low-velocity impact [38]. It has been shown that the angle of auxetic cores has a significant
influence on the structural responses of the sandwich structures [36]. In addition, it was found
that the auxetic composite panels were able to absorb the dynamic impact energy through plastic
deformation and the displacements of the back face-sheet can consequently be reduced [38].
Recent studies have shown that architected 3D printed cores, especially those with 3D
microarchitecture, present a new class of highly-optimized energy-absorption structures that
offer flexibility in controlling the response of sandwich structures under quasi-static and impact
loads [39-43]. Lightweight Isomax cores, as one of the new architected cellular structure, are
maximally stiff in all directions with maximum theoretical toughness [44]. Although a few
studies have been performed on sandwich structures with 3D printed architected cores to
evaluate flexural behavior [44-46] and out-of-plane compressive strength [47, 48], less attention
has been paid to explore the failure mechanism, energy absorption and multi-hit capabilities of
additively manufactured sandwich structures with 3D architected core topologies subjected to
quasi-static and impact loads.
Present research investigated the structural responses, failure mechanism, multi-hit and energy
absorption capabilities of 3D printed architected sandwich structures with mechanical
metamaterial cores, e.g. cubic, octet and Isomax cell topologies. Their behavior was studied to
efficiently optimize the energy absorption performance. The failure mechanism and energy

3
absorption capability of a meta-sandwich structure are influenced by its: (a) Total dimensions
(length, width and thickness), (b) Mass (relative density), (c) Properties of the base material used
to build the core and face-sheets and (d) Core topology. The current study focuses on the effect
of architected core topologies and relative density on the structural responses (Section S4 of
Supplementary Document), flexural stiffness (Section 3.1.3), energy absorption performance
(Sections 3.1.2 and 3.2.2), failure mechanism (Section 3.1.4) and multi-hit capability (Section S2
of Supplementary Document) of meta-sandwich structures 3D printed by fused deposition
modelling (FDM). The current research sheds lights on the durability of 3D printed meta-
sandwich structures as lightweight load-bearing and energy absorbent engineering components.

2. Materials and Methods

2.1. Meta-sandwich Structures and Experimental Set-up
In a previous study [19], we investigated energy absorption capability of sandwich panels
with architected 2D cores. Here, a new type of lightweight sandwich structures consisting of
repeating 3D cellular cores with high stiffness-to-weight ratio and high energy absorption
capability was designed. These cellular cores can reach the upper bound of Hashin-Shtrikman for
elastic stiffness showing a maximum strain energy storage [44]. We name these structures “meta-
sandwich structures”.

z
z
b
a a b
x y y
t x
tf tc tf t
tc

Ls Face-sheets

(a) (b)
Figure 1: Geometry and coordinate system: (a) Meta-sandwich beam and (b) Meta-sandwich plate.

Figure 1 shows the dimensions of the meta-sandwich beams and plates including length (a),
width (b), total thickness (t), core thickness (tc) and face-sheet thickness (tf). The coordinate
system (x, 𝑦, z) is located at the mid-plane of the meta-sandwich structures. The dimensions of

4
sandwich beams and plates, presented in Table 1, have been designed based on ASTM D3763
[49], ASTM C393 [50] and experimental testing limitations such as capacity or geometrical
restrictions of flexural tester.

Table 1: Geometrical parameters of meta-sandwich structures (Unit: mm).

Total Core Face-sheet Span length
Geometry Length (a) Width (b)
thickness (t) thickness (tc) thickness (tf) (Ls)
140 20 30 20 5
Beams 90
140 40 50 40 5
Plate 100 100 50 40 5 -

2.1.1. Mechanical Metamaterials as Cellular Cores

Figure 2 presents the unit cell configuration of three metamaterial cores including cubic, octet
and Isomax (cubic + octet) closed-cells [44]. All inclined faces of octet and Isomax cells have
54.74° with respect to the top plane, as can be calculated from Fig. 2b. Closed Isomax cells are
composed of sheet plate and exploit material constraints in two directions rather than beam-like
struts in lattices [44].

Cubic Octet Isomax (Cubic + Octet)

(a)

(b)
Figure 2: (a) Unit cells of the mechanical metamaterial cellular cores and (b) Geometrical characteristics of octet
unit cell.

5
Although closed-cell cubic and octet unit cells store a maximum amount of strain energy, they
are highly anisotropic [44]. As a result, Isomax [44] has recently been introduced by combining
cubic and octet unit cells to achieve an isotropic cellular material reaching the upper bound of
Hashin-Shtrikman for elastic stiffness and to show a maximum elastic strain energy storage.
Isomax cells consist of distributed networks of plates to efficiently transfer loads between
neighboring members leading to isotropic structural properties [44].

2.1.2. 3D Printing of Meta-sandwich Structures

The meta-sandwich beams and plates were manufactured by fused deposition modelling
(FDM) using MK2 3D printer, MACHINA Corp., out of polylactic acid (PLA) polymer.
Considering the layer-by-layer fabrication process of FDM 3D printing, the layer orientation was
found to influence the mechanical properties of the 3D printed material.

Table 2: Representative of 3D printed meta-sandwich beams and plates fabricated by FDM 3D printing.

Isomax beam (7×2×2) Octet beam (7×2×2)

Cubic beam (7×2×2) Auxetic beam (7×2×2)

Octet sandwich plate Isomax sandwich plate

6
Therefore, all samples were 3D printed along the same orientation. Examples of 3D printed
meta-sandwich beams and plates with four core topologies are shown in Tables 2 and S.1 of
Supplementary Document.

2.1.3. Material Properties

To study the 3D printed polymeric sandwich structure, it is essential to first characterize the
base PLA material. Dogbone tensile coupons, in agreement with ASTM standard D638 [51],
were 3D printed with the same material used for 3D printing of meta-sandwich structures as
shown in Fig. 3. The tensile tests were performed on four 3D printed dogbone coupons using an
MTS mechanical tester with a 10 kN load cell.

Figure 3: (a) Engineering stress-strain curves of 3D printed PLA dogbone coupons under tensile load, (b) 3D
printed dogbone coupons before and after tensile tests.

It is often the case with FDM 3D printing processes that material properties exhibit a certain
degree of anisotropy. Yang et al. [52] showed that the 3D printing orientation of 45° could
provide an approximation for evaluating the material properties of 3D printed materials, e.g.
Young’s modulus and Poisson’s ratio. Here, Dogbone coupons were fabricated in the orientation
of ±45° with respect to the loading axis (See Fig. 3b). Figure 3a presents the experimental tensile
stress-strain curves of 3D printed PLA coupons. The averaged experimental properties of PLA
are reported in Table 3.

7
 Table 3: Experimental properties of 3D printed PLA dogbone coupons.
Young’s Ultimate Yield strain Poisson’s ratio Plastic strain
̅)
modulus (𝑬 ̅u)
strength (𝑺 (𝜺̅Y) (υp)* at break (𝜺̅p)
Average mechanical
2.3 ± 0.1 GPa 46.1 ± 1 MPa 0.024 ± 0.001 0.38 ± 0.003 0.085 ± 0.001
properties
*
Measured after failure of the PLA samples.

2.1.4. Three-point Bending Test

Three-point bending tests were conducted on architected meta-sandwich beams using an MTS
test machine (Instron 5900R-5584) following ASTM C393 [50] to evaluate the flexural stiffness,
quasi-static energy absorption along with the failure mechanism as shown in Fig. 4. Four 3D
printed meta-sandwich beams with two span-to-thickness ratios of Ls = 3 and 1.8 were
considered, as shown in Table S.2 of Supplementary Document. The transverse quasi-static load
was applied at a displacement rate of 0.5 mm/min with a preload of 1 N. The resolution of the
load cell (MTS 661 20E-03 with maximum capacity of 100 kN) was 0.375 N. The load was
applied by a central roller of 10 mm diameter with two outer cylindrical rollers with a 10 mm
diameter spaced 90 mm apart.

Impactor

Simply supports

Figure 4: 3-point bending test configurations of 3D printed meta-architected sandwich beams.

According to ASTM C393 [50], the span of sandwich beams must be sufficiently short to
determine the core shear strength; in this condition, the core shear failure occurs prior to the
face-sheet failure. Therefore, the span length of the beam was set at 90 mm with respect to the
total thickness of one of the meta-sandwich beams selected as 30 mm (Ls = 3).

2.1.5. Low-velocity Impact Test

8
 To evaluate dynamic energy absorption capability of meta-sandwich plates (See Table S.3 of
Supplementary Document) The low-velocity impact tests were performed using a drop weight
machine with a 10 kN load cell based on the guidelines given in ASTM standard D3763 [49].
The resolution of the load cell (MTS 661 19E-04 with maximum capacity of 25 kN) was 0.01%
of the maximum load. The impactor had a mass of 22 kg and a diameter of 25.4 mm. During the
impact test, the samples were constrained between two parallel rigid supports with 75 mm
diameter holes at their centers (See Fig. 5). Sufficient clamping pressure was applied to prevent
the samples from slipping during the experiments.

Impactor

Guide rail
Sandwich plate

Figure 5: Low-velocity impact test configuration of 3D printed architected meta-sandwich plates.

2.2. Quasi-static Failure Mechanism of Architected Sandwich Beams

Sandwich beams under quasi-static 3-point bending fail in several modes: face-sheet
compressive failure, face-sheet wrinkling, core shear yielding, core compressive yielding and
interfacial failure between the core and face-sheets as presented in Table 4 [28, 53].

2.2.1. Face-sheet Failure

The face-sheet failure in sandwich beams is identified by two failure modes: face-sheet
compressive failure and face-sheet wrinkling (i.e., local buckling).
(a) For the face-sheet compressive failure, the maximum load per unit width (i.e., b) is
expressed as [53]:

9
 Xf
Pmax 

1
Ls   
  6 

  4t t  t
 f f c    4t 2f 
 



4 𝑘 𝐸𝑐
where Xf represents the face-sheet compressive yield. In addition, β = √4𝐷 , where k =
𝑓 𝑡𝑐

𝐸𝑓 𝑡𝑓3
and Df = ; Df is the bending stiffness of the face-sheet about its neutral axis and Ec and
12

Ef are Young’s modulus of the core and longitudinal modulus of the face-sheets,
respectively.
(b) The face-sheet wrinkling occurs due to the local buckling related to the waviness of the
face-sheet as well as the difference between the moduli of the face-sheet and core materials
[53]. Since sandwich beams have high-strength cores, high elastic moduli of the face-sheet
and cellular core materials and small amplitude in waviness of the face-sheet, the face-
sheet wrinkling failure mode does not occur.

2.2.2. Core Failure

The core failure in sandwich beams is identified by three failure modes: core shear yielding,
core compressive yielding and core buckling.
(a) For core shear yielding, the maximum load per unit width is expressed as [53]:


Pmax  2Sc tc  t f   2
where Sc represents the core shear yield strength.
(b) For core compressive yielding, the maximum load per unit width is expressed as [53]:
2Xc
Pmax 

 3
where Xc represents the core compressive yield strength.
(c) For core buckling, FEA is used to capture this type of failure modes.

2.2.3. Adhesive Failure

The interfacial failure may occur first when the interfacial strength is lower than the core
shear strength [53]. Opposed to conventional sandwich composites, 3D printed sandwich

10
structures do not require adhesion between face-sheet and cellular core, which dramatically
reduces the possibility of debonding of the core and face-sheets [1].
It should be mentioned that the impact failure mechanisms have been discussed in Section S3 of
Supplementary Document.

Table 4: Quasi-static 3-point bending failure modes of architected sandwich beams.

Failure type Failure mode Method
Face-sheet compressive failure Eq. (1)
Face-sheet failure
Face-sheet wrinkling (local buckling) FEA
Core shear yielding Eq. (2)
Core failure Core compressive yielding Eq. (3)
Core buckling FEA
Not applicable for 3D
Adhesive failure Interfacial failure between core and face-sheets printed sandwiches

2.3. Numerical Modeling

The 3D explicit nonlinear finite element analysis (FEA) was conducted using commercial
software ANSYS Workbench 18.2 with AUTODYN solver. Meta-sandwich beams under a
quasi-static 3-point bending load and meta-sandwich plates under a low-velocity impact were
simulated, as shown in Fig. 6. The finite element modeling included defining the geometry,
contacts and material properties, discretizing the medium and applying loads and the boundary
conditions. For 3-point bending analysis, the fixed supporting rods and the loading head were
made of steel with the radii of 10 mm. The loading was applied by assigning a finite
displacement to the top cylinder. For the low-velocity impact, the hemispheric impactor was
defined as a perfectly rigid body. The dynamic loading was applied by assigning an initial
velocity to the impactor. The contacts between supports, impactor and sandwich structures were
considered to be frictionless. The stress-strain relation of PLA was considered to be elastic-
perfectly plastic based on Table 3. The face-sheets and the core were discretized with tetrahedral
and hexahedral elements; a convergence study was conducted to avoid mesh size dependency.
To consider the failure in the impact analysis, the maximum equivalent plastic strain criterion
was used. Whenever the stress state of an element of the materials reached the predefined failure
criterion, the element was failed and removed from analysis, consequently. In addition,
geometric nonlinearity was adopted to capture large deformation mechanism of the meta-

11
sandwich structures. It should be noted that the gravitational force was negligible compared to
the force applied on the impactor.

Loading head Fixed in x- and y-directions Impactor

Face sheet
Fixed support

3D-printed core

(a) (b)
Figure 6: Finite element models for (a) 3-point bending and (b) Impact tests.

3. Results and Discussion

3.1. Energy Absorption, Flexural Stiffness and Failure Mechanism of Meta-sandwich Beams
3.1.1. Verification
Figure 7 presents the comparison of force-displacement curves of 3D printed meta-sandwich
beams (including Isomax, octet and cubic cores) under 3-point bending obtained by experimental
tests and nonlinear static FEA. Excellent agreement can be observed in the force-displacement
curves between the numerical and experimental results for displacement range up to the yielding
of the meta-sandwich beams with less than 5% error. After yielding FEA results and
experimental data are not matched due to using the elastic-perfectly plastic constitutive law
considered for FEA. As displacement increases, the experimental results show the failures of
platen struts leading to significant drops in the force-displacement curves, a phenomenon which
is not captured by FEA since any fracture criteria is not taken into account for the analysis of
meta-sandwich beams. Figure 7b shows the deformed configurations in the experiment; while
Fig. 7c shows the corresponding deformations obtained by FEA (von Mises stress distributions).
Table 5 presents the maximum load and flexural stiffness of meta-sandwich beams (Ls = 3)
obtained by the experiments and FEA. An excellent agreement can be observed with a difference
up to 8%. The simulated results are slightly higher than the experimentally values, which can be
emanates from different culprits: (a) The constitutive law assumed for numerical FEA has been

12
assumed to be elastic-perfectly plastic which can cause the difference between experimental and
FEA results especially for deformation ranged beyond the elastic domain. (b) FDM 3D printing
fabricated meta-sandwich panels by depositing molten layers in z-direction. The final 3D printed
products were layered in a microscopic layer; however, we considered perfectly bonded layers
when we implemented finite element analysis for modeling the FDM 3D printed products which
slightly over predicted their stiffness and strength. In addition, the current FEA considered 3D
printed PLA as isotropic materials; however, since the molten layers were deposited based on the
3D printing toolpath, the 3D printed materials can be orthotropic which has been overlooked in
the current analysis, and (c) The 3D printed PLA polymers could slightly lose their properties
when subjected to air or elevated environmental conditions. Since the tensile test on dogbone
coupons and the flexure and impact tests have been conducted at different time, this can be
another reason for slight difference between numerical results (obtained based on experimental
data found by tensile test on 3D printed dogbane coupons) and experimental data.

Figure 7: (a) Experimental and FEA force-displacement curves of 3D printed architected meta-sandwich beams
including Isomax, octet and cubic cores with the relative densities of 30% and 50%, (b) Experimental deformed
shapes and (c) The corresponding FEA meta-sandwich beams.

13
During the 3-point bending test, the platen struts are subjected to tension, compression, or
bending, a complex stress state which is not well-captured in a simple elastic-perfectly plastic
material model. Anisotropy, porosity and imperfections caused by 3D printing should also be
considered in the numerical simulation to obtain results closer to experimental data on 3D
printed sandwich structures. These results suggest the possibility of tailoring core topology of
lightweight sandwich structures to achieve desirable flexural properties for certain engineering
applications.

Table 5: Comparison between FEA and experimental data of meta-sandwich beams (7×1×1 unit cells).
Maximum load (kN) Flexural stiffness (kN/mm)
Core architecture
FEA Experiment FEA Experiment
Isomax 4.57 4.56 2.21 2.11
ρ = 30% Octet 4.84 4.82 2.29 2.24
Cubic 5.10 5.09 2.11 2.02
Isomax 6.87 6.85 3.02 2.90
ρ = 50% Octet 6.94 6.92 2.91 2.84
Cubic 6.94 6.93 3.00 2.95

3.1.2. Quasi-static energy absorption performance

Figure 8 presents the experimental load-deflection curves for different 3D printed meta-sandwich
beams composed of 7×1×1 unit cells (Ls = 3). The experimental data shows that the core
topology has a significant role on the load-deflection curves. Cubic meta-sandwich beam has
slightly the largest bending stiffness and maximum contact load, while the auxetic sandwich
beam has the lowest bending stiffness showing the largest value of bending deflection. It is found
that the sandwich beam with the auxetic core has much lower flexural modulus and stress level at
the same deformation level compared to the other core topologies. Figure 8b shows the
deformation configuration of the meta-sandwich beams with ρ = 30% right before the final
failure. Face-sheet fracture occurs in cubic (ρ = 30% and 50%), octet (ρ = 50%) and Isomax (ρ =
50%) meta-sandwich beams before core failure causing drops in the load-deflection curves and
local failure in meta-sandwich beams. The shear resistance or shear strength of the core materials
plays an important role during the bending of sandwich structures. Interestingly, no fracture is
observed in the auxetic sandwich beams (ρ = 30% and 50%) up to the final failure. The buckling
of constructive struts, however, is seen in auxetic sandwich cores. In addition, the failure in the
octet (ρ = 30%) and Isomax (ρ = 30%) meta-sandwich beams includes the fractures of top face-

14
sheets and horizontal platen and buckling of vertical platen struts. The buckling phenomenon
does not result in a catastrophic failure; instead the buckled cellular core enables the sandwich
structure to absorb energy under larger deformation. Therefore, global failure mode controls the
deformation of auxetic (ρ = 30% and 50%), octet (ρ = 30%) and Isomax (ρ = 30%) sandwich
beams. However, it should be noted that the core deformations in Isomax, octet and cubic
sandwich beams are irreversible after unloading.

Figure 8: Bending characteristic of architected meta-sandwich beams with different core architectures. Beams are
composed of 7×1×1 unit cells (Ls = 3): (a) Load-deflection curves and (b) Deformed configurations of each meta-
sandwich beam right before failure.

15
 Figure 9: Bending characteristic of architected sandwich beams with different core architectures. Beams are
composed of 7×2×2 unit cells (Ls = 1.8): (a) Load-deflection curves and (b) Deformed configurations of each meta-
sandwich beam right before failure.

Experimental 3-point bending load-deflection curves for different architected 3D printed

meta-sandwich beams composed of 7×2×2 unit cells (Ls = 1.8) are presented in Fig. 9. The
deformed shapes of the meta-sandwich beams with ρ = 30%, right before the final failure, are
shown in Fig. 9b. The Isomax meta-sandwich beam shows the largest bending stiffness and
maximum contact load, while the auxetic core sandwich beam has the lowest bending stiffness
and the largest bending deflection. While core buckling is observed in cubic (ρ = 30% and 50%)
and auxetic (ρ = 30% and 50%) sandwich beams. Core shear failure occurs in octet meta-
sandwich beams (ρ = 30% and 50%). Combination of core buckling and core fracture occurs in
Isomax meta-sandwich beams (ρ = 30% and 50%). In addition, the final failure for the auxetic (ρ
= 30% and 50%), cubic (ρ = 30% and 50%) and octet (ρ = 50%) meta-sandwich beams is due to
a tensile load in the lower face-sheet. On the other hand, the octet meta-sandwich beam (ρ =
30%) ultimately breaks under the core shear failure mode and the final failure for Isomax meta-
sandwich beams (ρ = 30% and 50%) is due to a compressive load in the top face-sheet. For the
span-to-thickness ratio of Ls = 1.8, cubic and auxetic sandwich beams show larger deformation
before the final failure compared to the other architected sandwich beams, which is due to the
fact that core buckling is more dominant in the failure behavior.
Figure 10 presents experimental results for bending stiffness, maximum load, displacement at
maximum load and energy absorption (up to final catastrophic failure) of meta-sandwich beams
composed of 7×1×1 unit cells (Ls = 3) of four core designs and for two relative densities of 30%
and 50%. By increasing the relative density, the maximum force, bending stiffness and
displacement at maximum load increase significantly for all meta-sandwich beams; however,
energy absorption only increases for the auxetic sandwich beams. Interestingly, the energy
absorption of Isomax, octet and cubic meta-sandwich beams with the relative density of ρ = 30%
are higher than their counterparts with the relative density of ρ = 30%. The meta-sandwich
beams with higher relative density are stiffer and stronger but more brittle. Therefore, larger
bending deflection occurs which leads to a higher energy absorption. At any given relative
density, octet, cubic, and Isomax meta-sandwich beams provide a larger maximum force and a
larger bending stiffness than the auxetic sandwich beam. Comparing the bending properties of

16
four 3D printed sandwich beams, it is found that octet and Isomax sandwich beams exhibit a
better performance over the cubic or auxetic sandwich beams. Isomax sandwich beam has the
same level of response forces but with smaller energy absorption ability compared to the octet
sandwich beam. Moreover, while the global deformation is more dominant in the failure
mechanism of Isomax meta-sandwich beams, octet and cubic meta-sandwich beams are more
prone to failures caused by local deformations.

Figure 10: Bending properties of the 3D printed meta-sandwich beams composed of 7×1×1 unit cells (Ls = 3): (a)
Bending stiffness, (b) Maximum load, (c) Displacement at maximum load and (d) Energy absorption.

Figure 11 shows the experimental results for the bending stiffness, maximum load, displacement
at maximum load and energy absorption of meta-sandwich beams composed of 7×2×2 unit cells
(Ls = 1.8). While the cubic meta-sandwich beam with higher span-to-thickness ratio (Ls = 3)
shows the lowest energy absorption among all meta-sandwich beams, for the lower span-to-
thickness ratio (Ls = 1.8), it shows the highest energy. This can be justified by the buckling of the

17
vertical platen struts in cubic unit cells instead of fracture, leading to absorption of higher energy
during the loading.

Figure 11: Bending properties of the 3D printed meta-sandwich beams composed of 7×2×2 unit cells (Ls = 1.8): (a)
Bending stiffness, (b) Maximum load, (c) Displacement at maximum load and (d) Energy absorption.

3.1.3. Flexural stiffness

In this section, the experimental and theoretical studies on the flexural stiffness of the 3D
printed meta-sandwich beams are presented. The flexural stiffness of sandwich beams is
calculated from the equivalent flexural rigidity (EI)eq and the equivalent shear rigidity (AG)eq.
The equivalent flexural rigidity of the rectangular beam, as shown in Fig. 1a, is [3]:
𝐸𝑓 𝑏𝑡𝑓3 𝐸𝑐 𝑏𝑡𝑐3 𝐸𝑓 𝑏𝑡𝑓 (𝑡𝑐 +𝑡𝑓 )2
(𝐸𝐼)𝑒𝑞 = + + (4)
6 12 2

Three terms, introduced in the right hand side of Eq. (4), describe the bending stiffness of the
faces and the core about their own centroid, and the bending stiffness of the faces about the

18
 centroid of the sandwich beam, respectively. It should be mentioned that Young’s modulus of the
core of sandwich beams is extracted from reference [44]; for other core topologies, the
computational homogenization technique [7], e.g. standard mechanics or asymptotic
homogenization, can be used to obtain the effective properties. Young’s modulus of the face-
sheet is equal to PLA Young’s modulus. The equivalent shear rigidity is defined as [46]:
𝑏(𝑡𝑐 +𝑡𝑓 )2 𝐺𝑐
(𝐴𝐺)𝑒𝑞 = (5)
𝑡𝑐

where the shear modulus of the core Gc is obtained by considering a periodic core under a shear
strain in FEA [44]. When a load P is applied, the deflections δ of the sandwich beam is the
summation of the bending (𝛿𝑏 ) and shear (𝛿𝑠 ) components:
𝑃𝑎3 𝑃𝑎
δ = 𝛿𝑏 + 𝛿𝑠 = 48(𝐸𝐼) + 4(𝐴𝐺) (6)
𝑒𝑞 𝑒𝑞

𝑃
Using Eqs. (4)-(6), the theoretical flexural stiffness of the meta-sandwich beam is =
𝛿
48(𝐸𝐼)𝑒𝑞 (𝐴𝐺)𝑒𝑞
. Table 6 presents the comparison between the flexural stiffness obtained by
𝑎3 (𝐴𝐺)𝑒𝑞 +12𝑎(𝐸𝐼)𝑒𝑞

the theoretical formulation, FEA and experimental testing. The theoretical flexural stiffness is up
to 12% higher than the experimental data.

Table 6: Comparison between the flexural stiffness of meta-sandwich beams obtained by 3-point bending
experiment, theoretical formulation and FEA of rotated cubic cores.
Flexural stiffness (kN/mm)
Experimental Theoretical
FEA
data formulation
Cell density and type
Isomax 2.11 2.35 2.21
Octet 2.24 2.39 2.29
ρ = 0.3
θ = 0° θ = 15° θ = 30° θ = 45°
Cubic 2.02 2.25
7×1×1 2.11 1.89 1.71 1.52
(Ls = 3) Isomax 2.90 3.15 3.02
Octet 2.84 3.04 2.91
ρ = 0.5
θ = 0° θ = 15° θ = 30° θ = 45°
Cubic 2.95 3.18
3.00 2.74 2.59 2.30
Isomax 8.25 8.46 8.33
Octet 5.74 5.92 5.82
ρ = 0.3
θ = 0° θ = 15° θ = 30° θ = 45°
Cubic 5.73 5.95
7×2×2 5.81 5.61 5.48 5.20
(Ls = 1.8) Isomax 9.50 9.69 9.60
Octet 8.73 8.97 8.80
ρ = 0.5
θ = 0° θ = 15° θ = 30° θ = 45°
Cubic 5.83 6.01
5.91 5.69 5.50 5.31

19
As mentioned in Section 2.1.1, as oppose to cubic and octet cells, Isomax cells are mechanically
isotropic. To show this advantage of Isomax over octet and cubic cells, we simulated cubic meta-
sandwich beams out of 15°, 30° and 45° rotated cells (in-plane rotations, See Section S.4 of
Supplementary Document) for both ρ = 30% and 50% under 3-point bending load. Table 6
presents the flexural stiffness of rotated cubic sandwich beams compared to regular cubic beams
(for Ls = 1.8 and 3). By increasing the rotation angle of the cubic core, the flexural stiffness
decreases since less material is involved in the load bearing characteristics of the meta-sandwich
beam.

3.1.4. Failure mechanism

The failure mechanisms were detected based on the formulations developed in Section 2.2
and FEA. We have also compared predictions with the experimental observation, reported in
Table 7. It is worth mentioning that the face-sheet compressive yield strength, used in Eq. (1), is
obtained from the literature that is Xf = 93.8 MPa [54]. In addition, the core shear yield strength
𝑃𝑚𝑎𝑥
(Sc) in Eq. (2) is calculated using (𝑡+𝑡𝑐 )𝑏
[50], where Pmax is obtained based on FEA of meta-

sandwich beams under 3-point bending loads (See Table 5). Finally, the core compressive yield
strengths (Xc) are obtained by FEA of periodic cubic, octet and Isomax unit cells under a
distributed compressive load. As presented in Table 7, theoretical formulation and FEA detect
the same failure mechanism as occurred in experiments for most of the cases. For cubic (ρ = 30%
and 50%) and octet (ρ = 50%) meta-sandwich beams, the failure starts with core buckling,
detected by FEA, followed by failure in the bottom face-sheet due to a maximum tensile stress.
This failure mode is not covered by the theoretical developments making it incapable of
capturing the phenomenon occurred during the experiments. The failure mechanisms are
illustrated in Fig. 12.

Table 7: Comparison of the failure mechanisms obtained by theoretical formulations, FEA & experimental testing.
Methods
Cell density and type Failure mechanisms Experimental Formulatio
tests ns & FEA
Isomax Core buckling & top face-sheet failure ✔ ✔
7×1×1 ρ = 0.3 Octet Core buckling & top face-sheet failure ✔ ✔
(Ls = 3) Cubic Top face-sheet failure ✔ ✔
ρ = 0.5 Isomax Top face-sheet failure ✔ ✔

20
 Octet Top face-sheet failure ✔ ✔
Cubic Top face-sheet failure ✔ ✔
Core buckling following by failure in the
Isomax ✔ ✔
top face-sheet
ρ = 0.3 Octet Core shear ✔ ✔
Core buckling following by failure in the
Cubic ✔ --
bottom face-sheet
7×2×1
Core buckling following by failure in the
(Ls = 1.8) Isomax ✔ ✔
top face-sheet
Core shear following by failure in the
ρ = 0.5 Octet ✔ --
bottom face-sheet
Core buckling following by failure in the
Cubic ✔ --
bottom face-sheet

Isomax Octet Cubic

ρ = 0.3 (Core buckling & top face-sheet ρ = 0.3 (Core buckling & top face-sheet
Ls = 3 ρ = 0.3 (Top face-sheet failure)
failure) failure)

ρ = 0.5 (Top face-sheet failure) ρ = 0.5 (Top face-sheet failure) ρ = 0.5 (Top face-sheet failure)

ρ = 0.3 (Core buckling following by failure ρ = 0.3 (Core buckling following by

ρ = 0.3 (Core shear)
in the top face-sheet) failure in the bottom face-sheet)
Ls = 1.8

ρ = 0.5 (Core buckling following by failure ρ = 0.5 (Core shear following by failure ρ = 0.5 (Core shear following by failure
in the top face-sheet) in the bottom face-sheet) in the bottom face-sheet)

Figure 12: Failure mechanism of meta-sandwich beams under quasi-static loading.

3.2. Energy Absorption of Meta-sandwich Plates

3.2.1. Verification
To verify the validity of FEA analysis, the numerical simulation result for the energy
absorption time-history of 3D printed Isomax meta-sandwich plates with the relative density of ρ

21
= 30% is compared with the experimental data in Fig. 13 for the impact energies of 3J and 40J.
Good agreements are found between the results of experimental tests and numerical analyses
with a difference less than 8%. The reasons why the simulated results are slightly higher than the
experimental data were mentioned in Section 3.1.1. In the energy absorption-time history plot,
the amounts of absorbed and returned (released) energies during the impact test can be observed.
The absorbed energy is the energy mostly dissipated by failure mechanisms, e.g. delamination
[55] and cracking [56]. The returned (released) energy is the elastic energy. Herein, we define
𝐴𝑏𝑠𝑜𝑟𝑏𝑒𝑑 𝑒𝑛𝑒𝑟𝑔𝑦
the energy absorption percentage based on the following ratio: % [19].
𝑀𝑎𝑥𝑖𝑚𝑢𝑚 𝑖𝑚𝑝𝑎𝑐𝑡 𝑒𝑛𝑒𝑟𝑔𝑦

The comparison of energy absorption percentage of meta-sandwich plates with the relative
densities of ρ = 30% and 50% subjected to 3J and 40J impacts evaluated by the experiments and
FEA are presented in Section S6 of Supplementary Document.

Figure 13: Experimental and FEA energy time-histories of 3D printed Isomax meta-sandwich plates with the
relative density of ρ = 30% for 3J and 40J impact energies.

3.2.2. Energy absorption performance

Figure 14 shows the time-history of experimental energy absorption of 3D printed meta-
sandwich plates under 3J and 40J low-velocity impact tests for alternative cellular core
configuration and relative density. Almost all meta-sandwich plates show the same energy
absorption capability for the low impact energy, while the different cores show dissimilar energy
absorption performance for higher values of impact energy.

22
 Figure 14: Energy time-history of experimental impact test on 3D printed meta-sandwich plates of
alternative core topology and relative density for 3J and 40J impacts.

The experimental results of the energy absorption and maximum load of meta-sandwich plates (ρ
= 30% and 50%) subjected to a 3J impact load are presented in Fig. 15. At low impact energy
tests, Isomax, octet and cubic meta-sandwich plates show the same energy absorption
performance which is higher than that of the auxetic sandwich plate. On the other hand, the
magnitude of maximum contact load for Isomax, octet and cubic meta-sandwich plates are not
the same. While the cubic meta-sandwich plate shows the maximum contact load, auxetic
sandwich plates exhibit the minimum magnitude of the contact load for both 30% and 50%
relative densities. The impact energy applied to the sandwich plates is primarily absorbed
through failure and damage of core and face-sheets. As shown in Fig. 15, the maximum contact
load increases significantly by increasing the relative density. However, energy absorption
capability of Isomax and auxetic sandwich plates either stays almost the same or marginally
drops. This observation corresponds to the increased stiffness caused by increasing the relative
density. The deformation configuration and equivalent stress distribution on the cross section of
the meta-sandwich plates under a 3J impact are shown in Fig. 15.

23
 Figure 15: Impact properties of 3D printed meta-sandwich plates with Isomax, octet, cubic and auxetic cellular
cores under a 3J low-velocity impact: (a) Energy absorption and (b) Maximum load.

Figure 16 shows the experimental results of the energy absorption capability and maximum load
of meta-sandwich plates (ρ = 30% and 50%) subjected to a 40J impact load. For the higher
impact energy, Isomax meta-sandwich plate shows the highest energy absorption capability for
the sandwich plates with the relative density of ρ = 30%. However, for the higher relative
densities, octet meta-sandwich plate illustrates the highest energy absorption capability. The
reason is both Isomax and octet meta-sandwich plates are controlled by a local failure mode. The
buckling of vertical platen struts occurs more in Isomax core compared to octet ones. The
buckling makes the sandwich plate deform further and absorb more energy. By increasing the
relative density, octet meta-sandwich plates show higher energy absorption capability than
Isomax meta-sandwich plate. This is due to the fact that Isomax core is stiffer than the octet core,
leading to less global deformation. In addition, by increasing the relative density, vertical walls
inside the Isomax become more and more supported by the inclined walls and therefore less
buckling is possible inside the cells of the core.

24
 Figure 16: Impact properties of the 3D printed meta-sandwich plates including Isomax, octet, cubic and auxetic
cores under a 40J impact energy: (a) Energy absorption and (b) Maximum load.

The octet meta-sandwich plate with ρ = 30% has a lower maximum contact force under the
impact load, which can have applications in minimizing the impact force applied to the structures
protected with 3D printed shock absorber. It is worth mentioning that auxetic sandwich plates
have lower energy absorption capability than the other sandwich plates. In addition, the energy
absorption capability of Isomax meta-sandwich plate decreases by increasing the relative density,
since local failure is a more dominate failure mode for higher relative densities than the global
failure which occurs in lower densities.

4. Conclusions
A numerical methodology, validated by experimental testing, was developed in this study to
optimize the quasi-static and dynamic energy absorption performance of a new generation of 3D
printed lightweight sandwich structures made of metamaterial cores. Four different core
topologies were 3D printed out of PLA and tested under quasi-static 3-point bending and

25
dynamic low-velocity impact conditions. The structural responses, failure mechanisms, flexural
stiffness, multi-hit and energy absorption capabilities of these meta-sandwich structures were
compared with their counterparts made of an auxetic cellular core. It is found that the core
topology and geometrical parameters of the meta-sandwich structures play significant roles on
their failure mechanism and energy absorption capability. As an example, for Ls = 3, octet meta-
sandwich beams with ρ = 30% showed a higher quasi-static energy absorption capability than the
other cell topologies, while the contact load during the 3-point bending test was also higher than
the meta-sandwich beams made of the other cell topologies. However, for Ls = 1.8, Isomax and
cubic meta-sandwich beams with ρ = 50% showed a higher static energy absorption capability
than the other meta-sandwich beams. However, for dynamic energy absorption, Isomax, octet
and cubic meta-sandwich plates had almost the same ability, all higher than the auxetic core for
low impact energy. For higher impact energy, octet meta-sandwich plates show higher energy
absorption performance. Regarding the multi-hit capability, 3D printing direction plays an
important role on multi-hit resistance of meta-sandwich plates. Finally, the designed meta-
sandwich structures could lead to significant weight reduction along with optimized energy
absorption capability without compromising their other mechanical performance.

Acknowledgments
H. Yazdani Sarvestani is supported by McGill University and an FRQNT (Fonds de recherche
Nature et technologies) postdoctoral fellowship award. A.H. Akbarzadeh acknowledges the
financial support provided by McGill University and Natural Science and Engineering Research
Council of Canada (NSERC) through NSERC Discovery Grant RGPIN-2016-04716. Authors
also acknowledge the collaborations of Mathieu Lapointe, Jeremi Bussieres and Thomas Guinot
from Composites Development Center of Quebec (CDCQ) for conducting 3-point bending tests
as well as the discussion with Prof. R. Boukhili and Ms. R. Ouadday at École Polytechnique de
Montréal for the low-velocity impact tests.

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29
 3D Printed Meta-Sandwich Structures:
Failure Mechanism, Energy Absorption and Multi-hit Capability
H. Yazdani Sarvestani1, A.H. Akbarzadeh1, 2†, A. Mirbolghasemi1, K. Hermenean3
1
AM3L Laboratory, Department of Bioresource Engineering, McGill University, Island of Montreal, QC H9X
3V9 Canada
2
Department of Mechanical Engineering, McGill University, Montreal, QC H3A 0C3 Canada
3
MACHINA Corp., Edmonton, AB T6H 2H3 Canada

S1. Meta-Sandwich Structures: 3D Printed and CAD Models

Table S.1: Representative of 3D printed meta-sandwich beams and plates fabricated by FDM 3D printing.
No. of
(7×2×2) (7×1×1)
cells
Isomax beam
Octet beam
Cubic beam
Auxetic beam

†
Address correspondence to: hamid.akbarzadeh@mcgill.ca, Tel: +1 (514) 398-7680.
https://www.mcgill.ca/bioeng/faculty-and-staff/abdolhamid-akbarzadeh-shafaroudi.

30
 Meta-sandwich plate

Table S.2: Architected meta-sandwich beams with four periodic core topologies.
Cubic Octet Isomax Auxetic

Table S.3: Architected meta-sandwich plates with three periodic core topologies.
Cubic Octet Isomax

31
S2. Effects of Core Topology of Meta-sandwich Plates on Multi-hit Capability
The effects of core topology of 3D printed meta-sandwich plates on their multi-hit and energy
absorption capabilities were investigated. The same drop weight machine was used and the
accuracy of the load cell (MTS 661 22D-01 with maximum capacity of 250 kN) was 0.01% of
the maximum load. The 3D printed octet and Isomax meta-sandwich plates with two relative
densities of 30% and 50% are subjected to multi-hit low-velocity impact loads of 60J and 120J.
The numerical analysis has also been conducted to study the multi-hit capability. As shown in
Fig. S.1, there is a good agreement between the FEA results and measured experimental data. It
is worth mentioning that failure of the sandwich plates is considered in FEA based on the
maximum equivalent plastic strain of PLA, i.e., 0.09. Even though the initial impact energy of
the second hit is 60J (for octet) and 120J (for Isomax), the absorbed energy of the sandwich
plates do not reach to 60J and 120J due to the failure occurred in the sandwich plates.
Table S.4 presents the deformed Isomax and octet meta-sandwich plates subjected to a
double-hit impact, obtained by experimental tests and predicted by FEA (equivalent stress
distribution is also shown in Fig. S.1). It is seen that cracks and delamination occurred during the
impacts are along the 3D printing directions. Since we overlook the effects of 3D printing
toolpath in FEA, delamination cannot be captured in deformed sandwich plates obtained by
FEA.

Figure S.1: Energy time-history obtained from the first and second hits of impact experimental tests and FEA of
architected meta-sandwich plates subjected to 60J and 120J impacts.

32
 Table S.4: Experiment and FEA comparison of Isomax and octet sandwich plates subjected a double-hit impact.
Unit cell Experiment FE simulation
Delamination

Isomax 0.3

Isomax 0.5

Octet 0.3

Crack

Octet 0.5

S3. Impact Failure Mode

The impact failure modes of sandwich plates can be affected by their geometry and material
properties. For the estimation of the failure mode, the time-history strain data of face-sheet and
core and the maximum strain failure criterion are used. The maximum strain criterion states that
the failure occurs whenever a normal component of strain reaches its maximum allowable value,
independent of the value of the other strain components. The failure index of the face-sheet (FIf)
and the failure index of the core (FIc) are defined as [53]:

33
  cf  cc c
FI f 
 c
, FI c 
 c
and FI c 
 c,max
 S.1
f ,max c,max

𝑐 𝑐
where 𝜀𝑓,𝑚𝑎𝑥 , 𝜀𝑐,𝑚𝑎𝑥 and 𝛾𝑐,𝑚𝑎𝑥 represent the allowable compressive strain of the face-sheet,
allowable compressive strain of the core and allowable shear strain of the core, respectively. In
addition, 𝜀𝑓𝑐 , 𝜀𝑐𝑐 and 𝛾𝑐 represent the applied compressive strain of the face-sheet, applied
compressive strain of the core and applied shear strain of the core, respectively. Whenever one of
𝛾
failure indexes (i.e., FIf, 𝐹𝐼𝑐𝜀 and 𝐹𝐼𝑐 ) equals to unity, the sandwich plates fail [53].

S4. Structural Responses of Meta-sandwich Structures

Here, the effects of core topology and relative density of meta-sandwich structures on their
natural frequency and buckling loads were studied. The non-dimensional critical buckling load
and fundamental frequency are defined as:

a2 a2 
N  Ncr ,    S.2
Es t 3 t Es
where 𝐸𝑠 and ρ are Young’s modulus and material density of constitutive solid materials (i.e.,
PLA used for 3D printing meta-sandwich structures). Figure S.2 presents the fundamental
frequency of meta-sandwich plates and non-dimensional buckling loads of meta-sandwich beams
for the span-to-thickness ratios of Ls = 3 (7×1×1 unit cells) and Ls = 1.8 (7×2×2 unit cells). As
shown in Fig. S.2a, the natural frequency of octet meta-sandwich plate is the maximum and
cubic meta-sandwich plate is the minimum among three meta-sandwich plates for the relative
densities of ρ = 30% and 50%. Figures S.2b and S.2c show that the buckling loads of octet meta-
sandwich beam along its length (x-axis) are higher than those of Isomax and cubic meta-
sandwich beams for Ls = 3 and ρ = 50% or Ls = 3 and ρ = 30%. Therefore, it is seen that the
global behavior of the sandwich plate with the same architectures and geometry in comparison to
other sandwich plates could be changed due to the relative density. It should be noted that the
boundary condition to obtain the natural frequency and buckling loads are simply supported and
fixed-free, respectively.

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 Figure S.2: Structural analysis of architected meta-sandwich structures: (a) Fundamental frequency of sandwich
plates, (b) and (c) Non-dimensional buckling loads of sandwich beams with the span-to-thickness ratios of Ls = 1.8
and 3, respectively.

S5. CAD Models of Rotated Sandwich Plate

Figure S.3: In-plane rotated cubic cells are used in FE modeling of architected meta-sandwich beams.

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S6. Dynamic Energy Absorption of Meta-sandwich Plate: Comparison of FEA Results and
Experimental Data
Table S.5 presents the comparison of energy absorption percentage of meta-sandwich plates
with the relative densities of ρ = 30% and 50% subjected to 3J and 40J impacts evaluated by the
experiments and FEA. The maximum difference between experimental data and FEA predictions
is less than 5%.

Table S.5: Comparison of FEA results and experimental data for impact energy absorption of meta-sandwich plates.
Energy absorption percentage Energy absorption percentage
Core architecture (3J impact) (40J impact)
FEA Experiment FEA Experiment
Isomax 72.05 70.31 86.02 83.52
ρ = 30% Octet 70.98 69.18 84.97 82.19
Cubic 70.08 68.74 82.13 80.96
Isomax 71.54 69.91 81.74 79.11
ρ = 50% Octet 74.09 72.99 91.45 90.13
Cubic 73.65 72.09 74.79 72.02

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