Towards an Ideal Energy Absorber: Relating Failure Mechanisms and Energy Absorption Metrics in Additively Manufactured AlSi10Mg Cellular Structures under Quasistatic Compression

A designer of metallic energy absorption structures using additively manufactured cellular materials must address the question of which of a multitude of cell shapes to select from, the majority of which are classified as either honeycomb, beam-lattice, or Triply Periodic Minimal Surface (TPMS) structures. Furthermore, there is more than one criterion that needs to be assessed to make this selection. In this work, six cellular structures (hexagonal honeycomb, auxetic and Voronoi lattice, and diamond, gyroid, and Schwarz-P TPMS) spanning all three types were studied under quasistatic compression and compared to each other in the context of the energy absorption metrics of most relevance to a designer. These shapes were also separately studied with tubes enclosing them. All of the structures were fabricated out of AlSi10Mg with the laser powder bed fusion (PBF-LB. or LPBF) process. Experimental results were assessed in the context of four criteria: the relationship between the specific energy absorption (SEA) and maximum transmitted stress, the undulation of the stress plateau, the densification efficiency, and the design tunability of the shapes tested—the latter two are proposed here for the first time. Failure mechanisms were studied in depth to relate them to the observed mechanical response. The results reveal that auxetic and Voronoi lattice structures have low SEA relative to maximum transmitted stresses, and low densification efficiencies, but are highly tunable. TPMS structures on the other hand, in particular the diamond and gyroid shapes, had the best overall performance, with the honeycomb structures between the two groups. Enclosing cellular structures in tubes increased peak stress while also increasing plateau stress undulations.