A Multi-phase Strut-plate Lattice Design Having Enhanced Strength, Stiffness, and Energy Absorption Ability

The advancement in additive manufacturing technology to produce very complex structures with high dimensional accuracy at micro or even nanoscales has led to the fabrication of a new class of lightweight materials. These materials possess an architecture periodic in nature and hence they are called lattice structures. Depending on the structural differences, lattices can be categorized as strut lattices and shell or plate lattices. The previous studies showed that the plate lattices outperform the strut lattices in terms of strength, stiffness, and energy absorption ability. Although plate lattices exhibit superior mechanical performance than strut lattices, powder entrapment is the major challenge in the fabrication of plate lattices. Recent studies explored the multi-morphology design of lattices where different unit cell topologies were integrated to enhance mechanical properties. However, the multi-phase designs of lattices integrating both strut and plate lattices had rarely been explored. In this study, a multi-phase strut-plate lattice was studied to enhance mechanical properties. In addition, the influence on the mechanical behavior and the structural stability of multi-phase strut-plate design due to different arrangements of plate reinforcements were also examined by choosing four distinct multi-phase strut-plate lattices. The quasi-static mechanical properties of the lattice were investigated using finite element simulation in Abaqus.