Numerical evaluation of high cycle fatigue life for additively manufactured stainless steel 316L lattice structures: Preliminary considerations

Abstract

Lattice components manufactured by selective laser melting processes are increasingly employed for producing high performing lightweight parts to be used in several industrial applications. However, the geometry at a submillimeter scale can exhibit not negligible differences with respect to the nominal design due to the high complexity of the manufacturing process. Accordingly, the mechanical behavior of lattice structures is strongly influenced by such process-induced geometrical defects. Therefore, to numerically predict the fatigue behavior of lattice components, the as-built geometry, as acquired, for instance, by means of micro-computed tomography, should be considered. In this work, we employ an immersed boundary method, namely, the finite cell method, to develop a numerical framework suitable to compute fatigue life directly on an as-built lattice geometry.