On Mechanical Properties of Cellular Steel Solids with Shell-Like Periodic Architectures Fabricated by Selective Laser Sintering

Historically, the approach in material selection was to find the proper material that serves a specific application. Recently, a new approach is implemented such that materials are being architected and topologically tailored to deliver a specific functionality. Periodic cellular materials are increasingly gaining interest due to their tunable structure-related properties. However, the concept of structure-property relationship is not fully employed due to limitations in manufacturing capabilities. Nowadays, additive manufacturing (AM) techniques are facilitating the fabrication of complex structures with high control over the topology. In this work, the mechanical properties of additively manufactured periodic metallic cellular materials are investigated. The presented cellular materials comprise a shell-like topology based on the mathematically known triply periodic minimal surfaces (TPMS). Maraging steel samples with different topologies and relative densities have been fabricated using the powder bed fusion selective laser sintering (SLS) technique, and three-dimensional printing quality was assessed by means of electron microscopy. Samples were tested in compression and the compressive mechanical properties have been deduced. Effects of changing layer thickness and postprocessing such as heat treatment are discussed. Results showed that the diamond TPMS lattice has shown superior mechanical properties among the examined topologies.