Compressive Mechanical Behaviours of Re-entrant and Anti-tetrachiral Auxetic Structures 3D Printed by Stereolithography Method

Abstract

Abstract Auxetic cellular structures are a class of advanced structures that possess a negative Poisson’s ratio (NPR) by experiencing lateral expansion/shrinkage under tensile/compressive uniaxial loading. The development of additive manufacturing (AM) technology has made it relatively simple to create complicated shapes, which has gained a lot of attention in auxetic structures as established and novel structural shapes are constructed physically and evaluated to confirm theoretical predictions. In the present research work, an experimental investigation is carried out on re-entrant and anti-tetrachiral auxetic structures fabricated via stereolithography (SLA) based AM technique using Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene (ABS) resin. Geometric parameters of re-entrant and anti-tetrachiral auxetic structure are varied to study their influence on the compressive performance namely compression strength, compression modulus and specific energy absorption. Further, the deformation mechanism of auxetic structures is observed in order to comprehend the relationship between the geometric configuration, failure and deformation modes. The compressive behaviour of these auxetic structures is significantly influenced by the selection of geometric parameters. The auxetic structures can offer better mechanical strength and energy absorbing capability via tuning of the geometrical parameters. The findings of this study are anticipated to contribute to a better understanding of the mechanical behaviours of energy-absorbing re-entrant and anti-tetrachiral auxetic structures prepared by SLA because of the absence of such analysis in the specialist literature.