Tunable mechanical performance of additively manufactured plate lattice metamaterials with half-open-cell topology

Abstract

Plate lattices are an emerging class of lightweight mechanical metamaterials that exhibit superior mechanical properties. The unique architectures of plate lattice metamaterials are regarded as the origin of achieving such advanced performance, but they lead to the difficulty of powder removal after the powder-bed-based additive manufacturing process. In the present work, plate lattice metamaterials with half-open-cell topology are proposed and fabricated via the laser powder bed fusion technique. To investigate their mechanical performance and deformation behaviours, numerical simulations and experimental tests are performed on finite element models and as-built specimens, respectively. Simulation results show that the mechanical properties and elastic anisotropy of half-open-cell plate lattice metamaterials are easily tunable when changing the geometric parameters, e.g., plate thickness or hole diameter. The elastic moduli and Poisson’s ratio are found to scale nonlinearly with the hole diameter for different plate thicknesses, and the elastic anisotropy approaches 1.0 for specific hole size. The specific energy absorption of half-open-cell plate lattice metamaterials is up to two times higher than that of truss lattice metamaterials. The porous architecture, lightweight body, superior and easily tunable mechanical performance of half-open-cell plate lattice metamaterials provide them application potential in the fields of load-bearing, energy absorption and biomedical engineering.