Crashworthiness of 3D Lattice Topologies under Dynamic Loading: A Comprehensive Study

Periodic truss-based lattice materials, a particular subset of cellular solids that generally have superior specific properties as compared to monolithic materials, offer regularity and predictability that irregular foams do not. Significant advancements in alternative technologies-such as additive manufacturing-have allowed for the fabrication of these uniquely complex materials, thus boosting their research and development within industries and scientific communities. However, there have been limitations in the comparison of results for these materials between different studies reported in the literature due to differences in analysis approaches, parent materials, and boundary and initial conditions considered. Further hindering the comparison ability was that the literature generally only focused on one or a select few topologies. With a particular focus on the crashworthiness of lattice topologies, this paper presents a comprehensive study of the impact performance of 24 topologies under dynamic impact loading. Using steel alloy parent material (manufactured using Selective Laser Melting), a numerical study of the impact performance was conducted with 16 different impact energy-speed pairs. It was possible to observe the overarching trends in crashworthiness parameters, including plateau stress, densification strain, impact efficiency, and absorbed energy for a wide range of 3D lattice topologies at three relative densities. While there was no observed distinct division between the results of bending and stretching topologies, the presence of struts aligned in the impact direction did have a significant effect on the energy absorption efficiency of the lattice; topologies with struts aligned in that direction had lower efficiencies as compared to topologies without.