Search Results

Additive manufacturing has been a promising technique for producing sophisticated porous structures. The pore's architecture and infill density percentage can be easily controlled through additive manufacturing methods. This paper reports on development of sandwich-shape extruded cross sections with various architecture. These lightweight structures were prepared by employing additive manufacturing technology. In this study, three types of cross-sections with the same 2-D porosity were generated using particular techniques. a) The regular cross section of hexagonal honeycomb, b) the heterogeneous pore distribution of closed cell aluminum foam cross section obtained from image processing and c) linearly patterned topology optimized 2-D unit cell under compressive loading condition. The optimized unit cell morphology is obtained by using popular two-dimensional topology optimization code known as 99-line code, and by having the same volume fraction as the heterogeneous foam.

The continuous development of sport technologies constantly demands advancements in protective headgear to reduce the risk of head injuries. This article introduces new cellular helmet liner designs through two approaches. The first approach is the study of energy-absorbing biological materials. The second approach is the study of lattices comprised of force-diverting compliant mechanisms. On the one hand, bio-inspired liners are generated through the study of biological, hierarchical materials. An emphasis is given on structures in nature that serve similar concussion-reducing functions as a helmet liner. Inspiration is drawn from organic and skeletal structures. On the other hand, compliant mechanism lattice (CML)-based liners use topology optimization to synthesize rubber cellular unit cells with effective positive and negative Poisson’s ratios.