Mechanical Properties of LPBF-Built Titanium Lattice Structures—A Comparative Study of As-Built and Hot Isostatic Pressed Structures for Medical Implants

Abstract

We compare different lattice structures with various elementary cell sizes built by laser powder bed fusion with and without hot isostatic pressing as post treatment. Cylindrical lattice structures are mechanically tested upon static and dynamic load in order to achieve high elasticity, high fracture strength and a high number of cycles to failure with respect to applications as medical implants. Evaluating the Young’s modulus, a high stiffness for the body diagonal structure and a low fracture stress for the G-structure are measured. Hot isostatic pressing results in a higher Young’s modulus and is ambiguous in terms of fractural stress. While samples without hot isostatic pressing reveal a shear fracture, the hot isostatic pressed samples have a high ductile area where the lattice layers are wrapped and pressed into the underlying layers without a fracture. Under dynamic load, the samples without hot isostatic pressing mostly are unable withstand 106 cycles at typical loads of the human body. Hot isostatic pressing has no significant influence on the strength at high loads and low cycle numbers, but at low loads all samples survived 106 cycles. As a consequence, dode-thick and rhombic dodecahedrons with 2 mm and 1.5 mm lattice size after hot isostatic pressing are recommended for medical implants because of the high elasticity, high fracture stress and high resistance against dynamic loads, which fulfill implant requirements.