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Effective mechanical properties of additive manufactured triply periodic minimal surfaces: experimental and finite element study

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Abstract

Recent advances in additive manufacturing (AM) led to the design and production of geometrical complex items with a plethora of materials facilitating the implementation of topology optimization procedures. Lattice designs are often employed for the topology optimization process providing lightweight structures with also additional advantages, such as high porosity and high surface area to volume ratio. Thus, there is a necessity to analyze these structures, examine their mechanical performance, and provide the computational tools to evaluate them. The current paper investigates the mechanical behavior of four triply periodic minimal surfaces (TPMS), namely the Schwarz primitive, the gyroid, the Schwarz diamond, and the Neovius structures. The structure of each lattice was analyzed and the influence of design-related parameters on the relative density was obtained. In order to study the mechanical response of the TPMS, representative volume elements (RVEs) were fabricated from polyamide 12 (PA12), utilizing the selective laser sintering (SLS) AM technique. Uniaxial quasi-static compression tests were conducted on the RVEs; their mechanical response was acquired and exploited in order to build advanced finite element (FE) models to simulate the overall mechanical behavior of each TPMS structure. Furthermore, these FE models with periodic boundary conditions were employed to extract the mechanical response of specimens that consisted of more unit cells. In addition, the numerical and the experimental data of more complex TPMS lattices were compared and verified the reliability and the accuracy of the FE models. Finally, the Schwarz diamond structure showed the best mechanical performance, in terms of strength and stiffness, slightly better than the Neovius, then followed the gyroid and Schwarz primitive structures, respectively.

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Funding

The authors acknowledge the contribution of the project “Intelligent and Automated Systems for enabling the Design, Simulation and Development of Integrated Processes and Products—ODYSSEAS” (MIS 5002462), which is implemented under the “Action for the Strategic Development on the Research and Technological Sector,” funded by the Operational Programme “Competitiveness, Entrepreneurship and Innovation” (NSRF 2014–2020), and co-financed by Greece and the European Union (European Regional Development Fund), on providing the Additive Manufacturing equipment that was used in current research.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Research and Technology Hellas – Information Technologies Institute (CERTH/ITI), Thessaloniki, Greece

    Nikolaos Kladovasilakis, Ioannis Kostavelis & Dimitrios Tzovaras

  2. School of Science and Technology, Digital Manufacturing and Materials Characterization Laboratory, International Hellenic University, Thessaloniki, Greece

    Nikolaos Kladovasilakis, Konstantinos Tsongas & Dimitrios Tzetzis

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  1. Nikolaos Kladovasilakis
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  2. Konstantinos Tsongas
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  3. Ioannis Kostavelis
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  4. Dimitrios Tzovaras
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  5. Dimitrios Tzetzis
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Contributions

Conceptualization, investigation, methodology, software, investigation, writing - original draft, and validation were performed by NK and KT. Writing — review and editing and equipment were provided by IK and DT. Conceptualization, writing - review and editing, and overall supervision were realized by DT.

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Correspondence to Dimitrios Tzetzis.

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The original online version of this article was revised: Figure 9 is incorrect in the originally published version and has been corrected.

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Kladovasilakis, N., Tsongas, K., Kostavelis, I. et al. Effective mechanical properties of additive manufactured triply periodic minimal surfaces: experimental and finite element study. Int J Adv Manuf Technol 121, 7169–7189 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00170-022-09651-w

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