Guo, S.; Ma, Y.; Liu, P.; Chen, Y. Mechanical Properties of Lattice Structures with a Central Cube: Experiments and Simulations. Materials2024, 17, 1329.
Guo, S.; Ma, Y.; Liu, P.; Chen, Y. Mechanical Properties of Lattice Structures with a Central Cube: Experiments and Simulations. Materials 2024, 17, 1329.
Guo, S.; Ma, Y.; Liu, P.; Chen, Y. Mechanical Properties of Lattice Structures with a Central Cube: Experiments and Simulations. Materials2024, 17, 1329.
Guo, S.; Ma, Y.; Liu, P.; Chen, Y. Mechanical Properties of Lattice Structures with a Central Cube: Experiments and Simulations. Materials 2024, 17, 1329.
Abstract
In this study, a new structure is proposed based on the body-centered cubic (BCC) lattice structure: adding a cubic truss in the center of the BCC structure, which is denoted by TLC (Truss-lattice-cube). The different dimensions of the central cube can affect the mechanical properties of the lattice structure notably. With a fixed length (15mm) of a unit cell, the optimal size for the central cube is determined to be 5 mm. Quasi-static compressive tests are performed on specimens made of Polylactic Acid (PLA) using additive manufacturing technology. The deformation characteristics of the new structure is analyzed in detail by experiments and numerical simulations. Compared to the BCC structure, the mechanical properties of the TLC structure are significantly improved. The initial flow stress of the TLC has been increased by 122% at a strain of 0.1; the specific strength has been enhanced by 293% at a strain of 0.5; and the specific energy absorption has been improved by 312% at the strain of 0.6. Printing defects in the lattice structure could deteriorate the mechanical property remarkably. In this work, incorporation of microcracks into the finite element model makes the simulation capture the influence of printing defects and improve the predictive accuracy of simulation significantly.
Keywords
Lattice structure; Energy absorption; Additive manufacturing; Printing defects; Finite element model
Subject
Engineering, Mechanical Engineering
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
