A FEM study on mechanical behavior of cellular lattice materials based on combined elements

The mechanical behavior of AlSi10Mg alloy lattice materials with rhombic dodecahedron and BCC unit cells fabricated by selective laser melting was investigated in this paper. Tensile tests were carried out to obtain material properties, mechanical response and failure characteristic. The results show that rhombic dodecahedron and BCC cellular lattice have variant tensile strength and stiffness. Various fracture features are also observed to be related to its configuration. Scanning electron microscope images of fracture surface demonstrate the lattice material resulted in ductile fracture. Finite element models based on combined elements were established. Afterwards, numerical analysis was conducted by ABAQUS. The FE results which could be employed to make some useful predictions are consistent with the experimental results.