ABSTRACT
With the advantages of custom-designed mechanical properties such as lightweight, mechanical strength, etc., additively manufactured lattice structures are in high demand for many industries, including biomedical, automotive, etc. For the ease of additive manufacturing (AM), various orientations of unit cells for lattice structures can also be taken into account. In this study, the orientational dependence of mechanical properties for a gyroid lattice structure is discussed. AM is used to manufacture metallic gyroid-structured parts made of Ti-6Al-4V at different unit cell orientations. Finite-element analysis (FEA) along with mechanical testing is used to study the relation between the Young's or elastic modulus and unit cell orientation dependence of the mechanical responses for gyroid lattice structures of different unit cell orientations. The study found that gyroid lattice structure with unit cell orientation of 60° exhibits better mechanical properties than 0° and 30°.
