Lightweight structural design with enhanced mechanical properties is considered a significant requirement in the field of advanced manufacturing industries such as aerospace engineering, biomedical engineering, and automotive engineering. Lattice structures have been considered as potential solutions to obtain structures with enhanced mechanical properties such as strength to weight ratio and energy absorption capacity. This research aims to carry out a comparative analysis of eleven different lattice structures inspired by nature using Fused Deposition Modelling with PLA as the chosen material. FEA analysis was conducted to analyse the mechanical behaviour of the lattice structures with respect to stress-strain behaviour, displacement, reaction force, structural efficiency, and energy absorption capacity. The results indicate the significance of lattice structures with different topologies to obtain enhanced mechanical properties. The lattice structure with the highest energy absorption capacity was the Truncated Cube lattice structure with 539.08 N.mm energy absorption capacity while maintaining the highest structural efficiency.
Kumar et al. (Mon,) studied this question.