The project, titled ‘Hybrid architectured lattice materials’, seeks to develop new classes of architectured hybrid lattice structures exploring the combination of a compliant polymeric phase infiltrated inside stiff lattices. This study will develop numerical tools to tune the properties of hybrid lattices through local variation of elemental units (such as nodes, struts and junctions). The work will use advances in Machine Learning to speed up the calculations as well as to effectively reduce the design space. The numerical results will be validated using state-of-the art metal and polymer 3D printing available at RMIT University.
The main objective of this project is to fill in the gap in knowledge concerning the mechanical properties, more specifically the energy dissipation, of metallic lattices infiltrated with a compliant polymeric phase tested under different loading conditions to better understand the role the constituent materials play on the mechanical properties of the resulting hybrid structure. Secondary objectives which will be covered include testing different combinations of additively manufactured lattices and compliant polymer fillers to discover favorable combinations of materials which could fill in holes in the materials’ property chart which have yet to be filled in.
