Additively-manufactured 3D truss-lattice materials for enhanced mechanical performance and tunable anisotropy: Simulations & experiments

Truss-lattices have wide application prospects in various important fields owing to their superior mechanical properties and energy absorption characteristics. In this paper, two typical truss-lattice materials (i.e. bending-dominated body-centred cubic (BCC) and stretch-dominated Octet architectures) were designed with enhanced mechanical properties and tunable anisotropy. The elastoplastic properties and large strain response were both investigated numerically and experimentally. Numerical results showed that a relative larger stiffness characteristic could be harvested when the shape parameter was chosen between 0.2 and 0.3, and the anisotropy degree could also be controlled through the shape parameter. Large strain multi-cell simulations also demonstrated the enhanced plastic properties and energy absorption characteristics of the designed architectures. The numerical findings were then confirmed through the uniaxial compression experiments on the 316L stainless steel truss-lattices specimens fabricated by the Selective Laser Melting (SLM) process. This study would broaden the design idea for the 3D truss-lattices with enhanced mechanical performance and tunable anisotropy, which may of great potential in engineering applications.