Estimation of Bending Behaviour for Beams Composed of Three-Dimensional Micro-Lattice Cells (Part 1 Based on Numerical Analysis)

In this paper, the bending properties of micro-lattice beam (second moment of area and natural frequency) are presented. In particular, the effects of overall lengths of the beam and geometries of the unit-cell on these properties are investigated by using FE analysis. The second moment of area for the micro-lattice beam depends strongly on the geometries of the unit-cell (strand's length, diameter and angles among the adjacent strands), and its trend is not the same as the continuous solid beam. On the other hand, the observed vibration modes for the micro-lattice beam are similar to those for a solid beam, and their natural frequencies can be estimated precisely using the initial stiffness, the second moment of area obtained by structural analysis and the mass per unit length for the lattice beam, if the wavelength for each mode is ten times as long as the width of the unit-cell.