Influence of µCT scanning resolution and volume on FEM-simulation of periodic 3D-printed porous ceramics

Abstract

Complex cellular ceramic structures are commonly fabricated via replica technique, gel-casting, or freeze-drying. These structures exhibit a manufacturing-related heterogeneity in their microstructure associated with a large scattering range of their physical properties. This further complicates the determination of the representative volume-of-interest (VOI) for the corresponding characterization method. Periodic cellular ceramics can be systematically investigated by µCT analysis to determine the influence of the scan resolution on the results of the mechanical FEM simulation under the same boundary conditions (load, displacement). In this work, a complex 3D printed Al2O3 structure with 3×3×3 arranged cubic unit cells is scanned with three different µCT resolutions (6.87 µm, 13.56 µm and 27.11 µm). From the scans, FE models and sub-volumes are created with a gradation by a factor of 2 down to 1/8 of the initial volume to determine the representative VOI. It was demonstrated that a good agreement with the experimental data can only be achieved with the highest scanning resolution, but here a reduction of the VOI by a factor of four is possible to obtain identical results despite slight production-related deviations.