Mechanical response of a triply periodic minimal surface cellular structures manufactured by selective laser melting

© 2018 Elsevier Ltd Cellular structures with controllable mechanical properties and porous architecture are the most promising candidates for many applications such as bone implants. Selective laser melting (SLM), one of the additive manufacturing (AM) technologies, enables manufacturing of space filling lattice structures with exceptional load bearing efficiency, customizable stiffness, controllable cell topology, cell size, and porosity. In this work, Schoen Gyroid (SG) unit cell, a triply periodic minimal surface (TPMS) structure, was used to design the cellular structures. As opposed to many other types of unit cells, SG has superior characteristics of self-supporting and high manufacturability for AM technologies. The titanium alloy (Ti–6Al–4V) SG cellular structures were manufactured by SLM. Finite element (FE) method was employed to predict the elastic modulus, compressive yield strength and stress/strain distributions of the SG cellular structures, and the failure occurrence mechanisms were analyzed. The FE results were compared with the experimental data. The results show that through FE method, the mechanical responses of the SG cellular structures can be accurately described and it is possible to customize the mechanical properties of SLM-produced titanium alloy TPMS lattices.status: publishe