A study of the effective elastic modulus of a lattice truss panel structure by experimental and theoretical analysis

Lattice truss panel structures (LTPS) have been widely used in engineering structures because of their high strength/density ratios. It is very essential to propose a precise method to calculate the effective elastic modulus (EEM). This paper presented a stretching model and a stretching-bending model to calculate the EEM, which have been compared with experimental results. The stretching-bending model considers the effects of seven geometrical parameters and it shows a good agreement with the experimental results, while the stretching model overestimates the results by approximately two orders of magnitudes. It has been also proved that the stretching-bending model is superior to the models expressed by the relative density. The EEM is strongly dependent on the geometrical parameters rather than the relative density only. At the same relative density, the dip angle, included angle and truss length have more considerable influences on the EEM, followed by truss thickness, truss width and node length successively.