Insight into the mechanical properties of 3D printed strut-based lattice structures

Since the development of additive manufacturing (3D printing), there has been a growing interest in the use of 3D printed lattice structures for a range of mechanical and biomedical applications. This study investigates the elastic properties of different types of strut-based lattice structures obtained through a series of compression tests and compares them against numerically calculated properties of intended designs. Two different 3D printing processes are employed for the fabrication of lattice structures, including selective laser sintering (SLS) and digital light processing (DLP). Gibson-Ashby power-law for cellular structures has been initially utilised as a framework for the comparison of numerical and experimental results. The results are normalised, allowing the comparison of elastic properties of lattices made in different polymer materials independent of the bulk material properties. This study suggests that although the mechanical properties of the fabricated parts are heavily dependent on the design of lattice unit-cell, the mechanical properties can be significantly different to those of intended designs depending on the 3D printing process used for the fabrication of lattice structures.