Evaluation of energy absorption enhancement of additively manufactured polymer composite lattice structures

The unique compressive behaviour of lattice cubic structures as well as their high specific strength and significant energy absorbing characteristics makes them an attractive solution for crashworthiness applications. Hence in this research study, the crashworthiness behaviour and energy absorbing characteristics of the thermoplastic polymer composite lattice cubic structures were experimentally investigated under quasi-static compression. Four design patterns such as Cuboctahedron, Kelvin cell, Truncated cube in square and dividend square geometrics were considered and fabricated through fused deposition modelling technique. The proposed structures were additively manufactured with four different thermoplastic polymer based filament materials and their influence on the crashworthiness characteristics were investigated experimentally. The obtained results revealed that the PLA-CF based KC configuration exhibited SEA of 2.50 kJ g(-1) and the maximum value of CFE is 84.91% for PETG-CF based KC configuration. Furthermore, the experimental results indicated that the proposed thermoplastic polymer composite based lattice cubic structures are potentially a suitable component for crashworthiness applications owing to their significant energy absorption ability.