Influence of Rectilinear Infill Parameters on Stress State of Mechanical Structures Components

Abstract

The use of additive manufacturing to produce mechanical components with internal infill lattice leads to material savings, decrease of weight and decrease of inertial loads. The correlation of the infill parameters with the mechanical behavior of the parts is intensively studied nowadays. This paper presents a numerical analysis of the influence of rectilinear infill lattice parameters on the maximum stress in bending of a cantilever beam. The infill lattice parameters analyzed in the paper were the distance between two successive lattice walls and the thickness of the wall. Two cases of loading are analyzed: a) bending generated by a force applied on the extrusion direction of the infill and b) bending generated by a force applied perpendicular to the extrusion direction of the infill. In both cases, it was shown that the maximum stress decrease with the decrease of the distance between the walls. Furthermore, the maximum stresses increase with the decrease of the wall thickness. For samples with identical volumes (same material consumption), lower stresses are obtained for the samples with a smaller distance between the walls and a smaller wall thickness compared to the samples with higher distance between the walls and higher wall thickness (at the same material consumption, a denser infill lattice has a superior flexural behavior).

Keywords

• rectilinear infill
• bending
• fem
• stress