Compressive Behaviour of 3D Printed Polymeric Gyroid Cellular Lattice Structure

Abstract

3D cellular lattice structures have multiple applications in engineering including uses in crash resistant and protective equipment. Gyroid type lattice structure has a complex geometric shape, which is very difficult to manufacture by conventional manufacturing processes. Additive manufacturing (AM) technique such as Fused Deposition Modelling (FDM) offers a convenient approach to fabricate such structure provided supports are carefully selected or avoided during their manufacture. This study involves designing the Schoen Gyroid type 3D lattice structure with different unit cell sizes and volume fractions and evaluating their manufacturability on the FDM 3D Printing machine. The study also presents the comprehensive behaviour of different Schoen Gyroid samples of four different unit cell sizes (ranging from 6 to 12 mm) and three different volume fractions of 14%, 20% and 25%. All the samples in this study where built without support. Results show that the smallest unit cell of size 6mm and the highest volume fraction of 25% was found to have the highest compressive strength among the samples tested in this study.