Experimental and Numerical Evaluation of Mechanical Properties of 3D-Printed Stainless Steel 316L Lattice Structures

Additive manufacturing (AM), and in particular selective laser melting (SLM) technology, allows to produce structural components made of lattice structures. These kinds of structures have received a lot of research attention over recent years due to their capacity to generate easy-to-manufacture and lightweight components with enhanced mechanical properties. Despite a large amount of work available in the literature, the prediction of the mechanical behavior of lattice structures is still an open issue for researchers. Numerical simulations can help to better understand the mechanical behavior of such a kind of structure without undergoing long and expensive experimental campaigns. In this work, we compare numerical and experimental results of a uniaxial tensile test for stainless steel 316L octet-truss lattice specimen. Numerical simulations are based on both the nominal as-designed geometry and the as-build geometry obtained through the analysis of µ-CT images. We find that the use of the as-build geometry is fundamental for an accurate prediction of the mechanical behavior of lattice structures.