Design and evaluation of compressive properties of 3D-printed PLA stochastic open-cell foam

Abstract

The deformation characteristics and mechanical behaviour of 3D-printed stochastic open-cell foam structures were experimentally studied under a quasi-static compression test. PLA foam specimens with irregular cell geometry, variable strut sections and prescribed relative density are constructed numerically using the Voronoi diagrams and prepared with fused deposition modelling. The design procedure allows controlling the strut topology easily, which makes the geometrical model suitable for studying the effect of local morphological characteristics on the mechanical performance of open-cell foam material. The effect of different morphological characteristics on the compressive mechanical behaviour of the fabricated PLA foam was examined in detail. Compression experiments prove that the mechanical properties are significantly dependent on the relative density and strut section shape. The main mechanical properties of the 3D-printed PLA foams for different cross-sectional shapes of struts were obtained via the energy-efficient method and expressed with the two common formulas existing in the literature.