Computational Fatigue Analysis of Auxetic Cellular Structures Made of SLM AlSi10Mg Alloy

Abstract

In this study, a computational fatigue analysis of topology optimised auxetic cellular structures made of Selective Laser Melting (SLM) AlSi10Mg alloy is presented. Structures were selected from the Pareto front obtained by the multi-objective optimisation. Five structures with different negative Poisson’s ratios were considered for the parametric numerical analysis, where the fillet radius of cellular struts has been chosen as a parameter. The fatigue life of the analysed structures was determined by the strain–life approach using the Universal Slope method, where the needed material parameters were determined according to the experimental results obtained by quasi-static unidirectional tensile tests. The obtained computational results have shown that generally less auxetic structures tend to have a better fatigue life expectancy. Furthermore, the fillet radius has a significant impact on fatigue life. In general, the fatigue life decreases for smaller fillet radiuses (less than 0.3 mm) as a consequence of the high-stress concentrations, and also for larger fillet radiuses (more than 0.6 mm) due to the moving of the plastic zone away from the edge of the cell connections. The obtained computational results serve as a basis for further investigation, which should be focused on the experimental testing of the fabricated auxetic cellular structures made of SLM AlSi10Mg alloy under cyclic loading conditions.

Keywords

• aluminium alloy
• SLM
• auxetic structures
• numerical analysis
• fatigue