Mechanical Behavior of As-Fabricated and UV-Cured Lattice Structures Printed Using the CLIP Technology

Abstract

In the rapidly growing field of additive manufacturing (AM), the focus in recent years has shifted from prototyping to manufacturing fully functional, ultralight, ultrastiff end-use parts. This research investigates the mechanical behavior of octahedral and octet lattice structured polyacrylate fabricated using Continuous Liquid Interface Production (CLIP) technology based on 3D printing and additive manufacturing processes. Five different octahedral structures and seven different octet structures with relative densities ranging from approximately 0.07 to 0.35 were fabricated by changing the strut diameter. The minimum diameter of the strut elements is 0.50 mm and 0.35 mm for the octahedral and octet structures, respectively. The different relative density structures were tested in compression in the as-fabricated state and after they were UV cured. The compressive stress-strain behavior of the lattice structures observed is typical of cellular structures which include a region of nominally elastic response, yielding, and plastic strain hardening to a peak in strength, followed by a drop in flow stress. It was found that the stiffness and strength of octahedral lattice structures is greater than the stiffness and strength of octet lattice structures at all relative densities for both as printed/fabricated and UV cured parts, and the ratio of stiffness and strength of UV cured parts to as fabricated parts decreases as the relative density increases. However, the ratio of stiffness and strength of UV cured parts to as fabricated parts for octet lattice structures in general is greater than that for octahedral structures. This can be attributed to the relative diameter of the struts and the depth of UV curing.