Indirect determination of the mechanical properties of stochastic lattices

Abstract

Determination of the mechanical behaviour of lattice structures has become a necessity to successfully implement lightweight concepts in various applications. Due to the large surface to volume ratio of these structures, the computational effort required for the FE simulation of models incorporating lattices is significantly increased mainly because of the large finite elements number which are necessary to accurately describe the complex input geometry. In this work a simple solution is employed in order to calculate the stress – strain properties, using a bilinear material law and equivalent bulk geometry. The verification of the FE model is fulfilled through the comparison of the lattice deformation and compressive force between experimental data and FE calculated results. After the verification of the FE model, it was possible to determine the mechanical behaviour of stochastic lattices, for an extended range of the investigated parameters, using only computational tools.