Background and motivation
Diatoms, a class of phytoplankton, are marine microorganisms characterized by having silicified hard shells and skeletons with highly complex architectures. These morphologies have been shaped by the selective pressures that the organisms have been subjected to during their evolutionary history.
Establishing the relationships between the biological structures in question and their possible mechanical roles will not only upgrade the body of knowledge on these organisms and the evolutionary pressures which have shaped them, but it would also enable engineers to employ the discovered biological strategies into solving analogous technical human challenges.

Objectives
Through computational design and simulation, this work aims to uncover the links between naturally occurring intricate plankton geometries and their mechanical functions. In detail, the results obtained from a two-stage approach will contribute to improving the general understanding of phytoplankton organisms, while helping to develop bio-inspired functional design strategies that can be efficiently transferred to state-of-the-art engineering applications and design technologies.
 

Results
Two novel structural optimization methods inspired by the shell morphologies of several diatom species were developed. While standard engineering design software often relies on uniform material distributions or simple cellular structures, the proposed methods optimize both component boundaries and internal material placement. This includes adjusting cell-density distributions in cellular architectures as well as modulating surface thickness and reinforcement patterns in large surface-based components. These strategies resulted in substantial improvements in lightweight mechanical performance when applied to engineering parts. The work also examined the effectiveness of naturally occurring TPMS (Triply Periodic Minimal Surface) lattices for stiffness optimization using homogenization. Benchmarking these lattices against other structural types demonstrated their superior mechanical performance and practical relevance for engineering components, ultimately leading to enhanced performance in real-world design applications.
 

Publications
Breish, F., Hamm, C., Kienzler R. (2023) Diatom-inspired stiffness optimization for plates and cellular solids. Bioinspir Biomim. 18(3)'
Breish, F., Hamm, C., Andresen S. (2024) Nature’s Load-Bearing Design Principles and Their Application in Engineering: A Review. Biomimetics. 9(9)
Breish, F., Hamm, C., Kienzler R. (2025) Beyond Global Mechanical Properties: Bioinspired Triply‐Periodic Minimal Surface Cellular Solids for Efficient Mechanical Design and Optimization. Adv. Eng. Mater. 27