Effective Elastic Properties of Additively Manufactured Metallic Cellular Structures using Numerical Unit-Cell Homogenization

Cellular structures are complex lightweight structures that are characterized by their excellent mechanical, thermal, and acoustic properties. Advancements in additive manufacturing have led to an increased interest in these types of structures. The current work examines the possibility of adopting numerical unit-cell homogenization as a comparative and predictive tool for cellular structures’ stiffness. In this study, four cellular structures were investigated: octet-truss, octahedral, gyroid, and sheet IWP-CM. Homogenization models were developed for these four structures, and python scripts were written. Octet-truss and octahedral structures were additively manufactured and tested. Gyroid and sheet IWP-CM experimental results were obtained from literature. Predictions from the numerical unit-cell homogenization model were compared against experimental results. In all cases, the comparison showed that the predictions of the unit-cell homogenization models were within 10% of the experimental results. This signifies that numerical unit-cell homogenization can be adopted as a comparative and predictive tool in evaluating additively manufactured cellular structures.