Previous studies have revealed the influence of various lattice structures on the material density and mechanical properties. However, the majority of the topologies that are considered as study objects directly refer to metal/non-crystal lattice cell configurations. Therefore, this paper proposes a configuration generation approach for generating a lattice structure, which can obtain a lattice configuration that enjoys the advantages of both ultra-low weight and favorable mechanical properties. Based on this approach, a new type of face-centered cubic lattice (all face-centered cubic, AFCC) structure with comprehensively optimal properties in terms of mass and mechanical properties is obtained. The experimental samples are formed with Ti6Al4V by the selective laser melting (SLM) method. Quasi-static uniaxial compression performance experiments and finite element analysis (FEA) are conducted on an AFCC structure and the control group body-centered cubic (BCC) structure. The results demonstrates that our optimized AFCC lattice structure is superior to the BCC structure, with elastic modulus and yield limit increases of 143% and 120%, respectively. For the same degree of deformation, the energy absorbed increases approximately 2.4 times. The AFCC demonstrates significant advantages in terms of its mechanical properties and anti-explosion impact resistance while maintaining favorable ultra-low weight, which validates the hypothesis that the proposed configuration generation approach can provide guidance for the design and further research on ultra-light lattice structures in related fields.
Keywords: FEA; ground structure method; lattice structure; selective laser melting; topology optimization.