With approximately ten times greater gravimetric charge capacity over conventional carbon-based anodes, silicon and germanium have emerged as attractive anode materials for lithium-ion batteries. Instead of lithium ion intercalation, such anodes operate via alloying, transforming crystalline or amorphous Si/Ge (c- or a-Si/Ge) into an amorphous phase (a-LixSi or a-LixGe). However, along with improved charge capacity, the alloying process produces a nearly 300% volume change in the anode, which can lead to mechanical failure, thereby preventing these materials from seeing their full potential. Previous studies have experimented with anode shape as a means to improve stability. Using processes such as liquid metal dealloying, vacuum distillation, and annealing and etching, it is possible to create smooth anode geometries with high surface area and thin ligaments. Such nanoporous structures have been shown to possess excellent stability, which is believed to be due to the structures’ ability to accommodate the large volume expansion using pore space. However, beyond the high-level observations of pore space accommodation, there is limited insight into the mechanisms which underly the exceptional performance of nanoporous anodes. In this work, a group led by Prof. Alain Karma from the Center for Interdisciplinary Research on Complex Systems, Department of Physics, Northeastern University, utilized a multi-physics mechanical model—incorporating phase transformation, elastoplastic deformation, and fracture—to reveal insights into the swelling behavior of nanoporous structures during lithium insertion. They simulated nanoporous specimens with realistic shapes created through simulation of liquid metal dealloying, and compared these shapes with idealized geometries. Their simulations showed that enhanced mechanical stability results from the network topology consisting of ligaments connected by bulbous, sphere-like nodes. The ligaments forcefully resist elongation while the nodes, behaving like isolated spherical particles, experience large stresses driving fracture. However, being smaller compared to a sphere of the same volume as the entire nanoporous particle, the nodes are more protected against fracture. This work highlights how geometric features of the nanoporous particles affect their mechanical behavior. As the mechanical model in this work can be extended to include multiple materials, it may be used to better understand the swelling behavior of composite designs.