A mechanical property evaluation of graded density Al-Si10-Mg lattice structures manufactured by selective laser melting

By I. Maskery, N. Aboulkhair, A. Aremu, Christopher John Tuck, Ian Ashcroft, Ricky Wildman, Richard J. M. Hague. 2016

619 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Metal components with applications across a range of industrial sectors can be manufactured by selective laser melting (SLM). A particular strength of SLM is its ability to manufacture components incorporating periodic lattice structures not realisable by conventional manufacturing processes. This enables the production of advanced, functionally graded, components. However, for these designs to be successful, the relationships between lattice geometry and performance must be established. We do so here by examining the mechanical behaviour of uniform and graded density SLM Al-Si10-Mg lattices under quasistatic loading. As-built lattices underwent brittle collapse and non-ideal deformation behaviour. The application of a microstructure-altering thermal treatment drastically improved their behaviour and their capability for energy absorption. Heat-treated graded lattices exhibited progressive layer collapse and incremental strengthening. Graded and uniform structures absorbed almost the same amount of energy prior to densification, 6.3±0.26.3±0.2 MJ/m3 and 5.7±0.25.7±0.2 MJ/m3, respectively, but densification occurred at around 7% lower strain for the graded structures. Several characteristic properties of SLM aluminium lattices, including their effective elastic modulus and Gibson-Ashby coefficients, C1 and α, were determined; these can form the basis of new design methodologies for superior components in the future.

Subfields: Automotive Engineering, Mechanical Engineering

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/0145bdc6195475c852f0c24888c8d604f7d359d7

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Citations in the corpus

Effective design and simulation of surface-based lattice structures featuring volume fraction and cell type grading (2018, background): “Alternatively, functional grading can provide novel behaviour, such as layer-by-layer structural collapse [2,41] and tailorable impactor deceleration under dynamic loading [42].”
Change in microstructure of selectively laser melted AlSi10Mg alloy with heat treatments (2017, background): “A porous Al alloy with a cellular lattice structure fabricated by SLM exhibits an unstable compressive stress with a series of peaks and troughs [12,13].”
3D printing of Aluminium alloys: Additive Manufacturing of Aluminium alloys using selective laser melting (2019, background): “The levels of achievable complexity are significant; examples include – but are not limited to – complex light-weighting structures (lattice structures either strut- or triply periodic minimal surface TPMS-based) [11] and functionally-graded materials [12].”
Design and analysis of strut-based lattice structures for vibration isolation (2017, methodology): “FEA methods, commonly used to predict the natural frequency and compressive strength of a lattice structure, are computationally intensive and require specific procedures to be followed, such as convergence tests [4].”
An overview of functionally graded additive manufacturing (2018, background): “Maskery (2016) studied the relationships between the lattice geometry and the mechanical behaviour of Al-Si10-Mg lattices of uniform and graded densities together with the crushing behaviour of the FGM under quasi-static loading.”