Understanding the
structure–property relationship of biological
materials, such as bones, teeth, cells, and biofilms, is critical
for diagnosing diseases and developing bioinspired materials and structures.
The intrinsic multiphase heterogeneity with interfaces places great
challenges for mechanical modeling. Here, we develop an image-based
polygonal lattice model for simulating the mechanical deformation
of biological materials with complicated shapes and interfaces. The
proposed lattice model maintains the uniform meshes inside the homogeneous
phases and restricts the irregular polygonal meshes near the boundaries
or interfaces. This approach significantly simplifies the mesh generation
from images of biological structures with complicated geometries.
The conventional finite element simulations validate this polygonal
lattice model. We further demonstrate that the image-based polygonal
lattices generate meshes from images of composite structures with
multiple inclusions and capture the nonlinear mechanical deformation.
We conclude the paper by highlighting a few future research directions
that will benefit from the functionalities of polygonal lattice modeling.