Excellent Mechanical Properties and Energy Absorption of Hexagonal‐Body‐Centered Lattice Structure Fabricated by Selective Laser Melting

Abstract

Inspired by the crystal lattice characteristics of hexagonal close‐packed and body‐centered cubic metals, a novel hexagonal body‐centered (HBC) lattice structure is constructed for energy absorption. HBC lattice structures with three different c/a ratios are prepared by selective laser melting (SLM) using 316L stainless steel powder. The geometric features and energy absorption performance of the fabricated HBC lattice structures with different c/a ratios are studied by scanning electron microscopy and quasi‐static compression tests, respectively. The results show that the HBC lattice structure prepared by SLM not only exhibits good formability, but also demonstrates excellent mechanical properties and energy absorption capacity. The c/a ratio significantly affects the mechanical properties and energy‐absorption performance of HBC lattice structures. The Young’s modulus, yield strength, and energy absorption increase as the c/a ratio decreases. Compared with other lattice structures, the HBC lattice structure exhibits better energy absorption at the same relative density, thus indicating the usefulness of the HBC lattice structure as a lightweight energy‐absorbing structure.This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Mechanical Properties of Selective Laser Melting‐Processed Multihierarchical Lattice Structure Based on Body‐Centered‐Cubic Unit Cell

“…Lattice structures have found widespread applications in various fields such as automobiles, [1] aeronautics, and astronautics [2] due to their lightweight, [3] excellent energy absorption capability [4] and mechanical properties, [5] as well as flexible designability. [6] The lattice structure consists of a periodic arrangement of unit cells, which are composed of struts (equivalent to atomic bonds) and nodes (equivalent to atoms).…”