An investigation into reinforced and functionally graded lattice structures

By I. Maskery, Alexandra Hussey, A. Panesar, A. Aremu, Christopher John Tuck, Ian Ashcroft, Richard J. M. Hague. 2017

299 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Lattice structures are regarded as excellent candidates for use in lightweight energy-absorbing applications, such as crash protection. In this paper we investigate the crushing behaviour, mechanical properties and energy absorption of lattices made by an additive manufacturing process. Two types of lattice were examined: body-centred-cubic (BCC) and a reinforced variant called BCC z . The lattices were subject to compressive loads in two orthogonal directions, allowing an assessment of their mechanical anisotropy to be made. We also examined functionally graded versions of these lattices, which featured a density gradient along one direction. The graded structures exhibited distinct crushing behaviour, with a sequential collapse of cellular layers preceding full densification. For the BCC z lattice, the graded structures were able to absorb around 114% more energy per unit volume than their non-graded counterparts before full densification, 1371 ± 9 kJ/m3 versus 640 ± 10 kJ/m3. This highlights the strong potential for functionally graded lattices to be used in energy-absorbing applications. Finally, we determined several of the Gibson–Ashby coefficients relating the mechanical properties of lattice structures to their density; these are crucial in establishing the constitutive models required for effective lattice design. These results improve the current understanding of additively manufactured lattices and will enable the design of sophisticated, functional, lightweight components in the future.

Subfields: Mechanical Engineering, Polymers and Plastics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/d5b9bb99104ab2f665f14fc946cf88eee6df3161

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In Mechanical Engineering

In Polymers and Plastics

Citations in the corpus

Insights into the mechanical properties of several triply periodic minimal surface lattice structures made by polymer additive manufacturing (2017, methodology): “Following the methodology used in a previous examination of SLS lattice structures [4], the lattice specimens were mechanically compressed using an Instron 5966 universal testing machine equipped with a 50 kN load cell.”
3D printing of Aluminium alloys: Additive Manufacturing of Aluminium alloys using selective laser melting (2019, background): “This includes the ability to offer design features not achievable conventionally, such as: embedding complex internal structures or channels into designs [6] (such as lattices [7]); enabling light-weighting through topology optimisation [8] and ultimately, the production of multimaterial, multifunct”
A mechanical property evaluation of graded density Al-Si10-Mg lattice structures manufactured by selective laser melting (2016, background): “Similar behaviour was observed for BCC lattice structures made by SLS in a polymeric material[19], but in that case WV (εlatt.) was found to be roughly proportional to εlatt.”
Design and analysis of strut-based lattice structures for vibration isolation (2017, background): “Model 1 is a body-centred-cubic (BCC) which is the simplest configuration of lattice cell with nine nodes [6].”
Continuous graded Gyroid cellular structures fabricated by selective laser melting: Design, manufacturing and mechanical properties (2019, methodology): “778, which are out of the range given by Gibson and Ashby, and are larger than the values reported by other researchers [7,50].”