Plate-Reinforced Octet Truss Lattice with Improved Energy Absorption Ability

The recent development of additive manufacturing has opened the possibility of microlattice structure, which is otherwise difficult to fabricate with conventional manufacturing techniques. Novel hybrid lattice structures based on octet truss lattice are introduced in the study, and the energy absorption ability of the hybrid lattice is compared with that of the conventional octet truss lattice. Octet truss lattice is a stretching-dominated structure showing superior mechanical properties as compared to most truss lattices. The objective of this work is to improve the energy absorption ability of the octet truss lattice, which can be attained by modifying unit cell geometry. This hybrid microlattice is a combination of truss and plate having octet truss as the base unit cell with additional three flat plates symmetrically arranged in each unit cell. Numerical simulation was carried out using Abaqus/Explicit to analyze the quasi-static deformation behavior of the microlattice structure under compressive load. The change in position of the plates in the truss lattice makes a significant difference in energy absorption ability. The hybrid lattice with an appropriate arrangement of plates exhibits a considerable increase in energy absorption ability as compared to the conventional octet truss lattice at the same relative density.