LEAP71 publishes library for the design of aperiodic aerospace structures

The start-up LEAP71 has released a new open source library for creating aperiodic patterns and quasi-crystalline structures for engineering applications. The release, created by Josefine Lissner, enables the generation of complex, non-periodic tile and spatial structures.

Aperiodic patterns were first used for decorative purposes in the Golden Age of Islam, but were only rediscovered as a mathematical curiosity by Roger Penrose. Quasicrystals, ordered but non-periodic structures, were long considered impossible until their discovery earned Dan Shechtman the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2011.

In contrast to classical crystal lattices, quasicrystals exhibit different rotational symmetries in diffraction patterns than pentagonal ones. According to LEAP71 , their special material properties could be advantageous for aerospace structures, as the non-repetitive patterns are supposedly more resistant to resonance.

The library is intended to provide a starting point for the generation of such aperiodic patterns as Penrose tiles in 2D and quasicrystals in 3D. One example is a hypersonic airplane panel structured with multi-layer Penrose patterns, which should better withstand broadband vibrations.

The source code is available for download on GitHub together with explanations and requires the geometry engine PicoGK and ShapeKernel.