Compressive Response and Energy Absorption of Additively Manufactured Elastomers with Varied Simple Cubic...

Area of Science:

• Materials Science
• Mechanical Engineering
• Additive Manufacturing

Background:

• Elastomeric cellular structures are promising for tunable compliance and energy dissipation.
• Limited data exists on structure-property relationships in additively manufactured elastomers.
• Vat photopolymerization enables high-resolution fabrication of complex cellular designs.

Purpose of the Study:

• To explore the mechanical response of polyurethane simple cubic structures under compression.
• To investigate the effects of varying volume fraction, unit cell length, and strut patterning.
• To establish structure-property relationships for tailored elastomeric materials.

Main Methods:

• Additive manufacturing via vat photopolymerization was used to create polyurethane cellular structures.
• Compressive stress-strain tests were performed on structures with varied designs.
• Power law relationships were developed to model structure-property interactions.

Main Results:

• Increasing volume fraction significantly altered stress-strain behavior and energy absorption.
• Modifying strut configuration impacted mechanical response more than unit cell length.
• Developed power law models showed strong correlation with experimental data (R² > 0.91).

Conclusions:

• Volume fraction and strut patterning are critical design parameters for elastomeric cellular materials.
• Findings provide a foundation for designing materials with specific mechanical properties.
• This research advances the understanding of additively manufactured elastomer performance.