Investigation of Mechanical Properties for Bio-Inspired Lattice Metamaterials with Crossed Struts in Multiple Units

Abstract

Lattice materials are novel materials with cellular cells whose properties can be customized by adjusting the topology structure. In this work, inspired by the crossed-lamellar structure found in natural mollusk shells,. a cross-strengthening strategy was proposed to enhance the mechanical property performance of Ti-6Al-4V lattices. A selective laser melting technique was used to fabricate samples, and finite element simulations and experiments were carried out to investigate the mechanical performance. The elastic anisotropy of the samples was also analyzed using the asymptotic homogenization method. The results demonstrate that the proposed cross-strengthening strategy, with multiple cells as the design space, can result in SC lattices having better mechanical properties than structures with the same material and relative density. Furthermore, a generalized model for predicting the compressive strength of Ti-6Al-4V lattice materials fabricated by any additive manufacturing process was developed and its accuracy was verified.

Keywords: 3D-Printing, Numerical Analysis, Analytical modeling, Mechanical properties