Affiliation:
1. Industrial Systems Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science, University of Regina, Regina, SK S4S 0A2, Canada
Abstract
Polymer foams are extensively utilized because of their superior mechanical and energy-absorbing capabilities; however, foam materials of consistent geometry are difficult to produce because of their random microstructure and stochastic nature. Alternatively, lattice structures provide greater design freedom to achieve desired material properties by replicating mesoscale unit cells. Such complex lattice structures can only be manufactured effectively by additive manufacturing or 3D printing. The mechanical properties of lattice parts are greatly influenced by the lattice parameters that define the lattice geometries. To study the effect of lattice parameters on the mechanical stiffness of lattice parts, 360 lattice parts were designed by varying five lattice parameters, namely, lattice type, cell length along the X, Y, and Z axes, and cell wall thickness. Computational analyses were performed by applying the same loading condition on these lattice parts and recording corresponding strain deformations. To effectively capture the correlation between these lattice parameters and parts’ stiffness, five machine learning (ML) algorithms were compared. These are Linear Regression (LR), Polynomial Regression (PR), Decision Tree (DT), Random Forest (RF), and Artificial Neural Network (ANN). Using evaluation metrics such as mean squared error (MSE), root mean squared error (RMSE), and mean absolute error (MAE), all ML algorithms exhibited significantly low prediction errors during the training and testing phases; however, the Taylor diagram demonstrated that ANN surpassed other algorithms, with a correlation coefficient of 0.93. That finding was further supported by the relative error box plot and by comparing actual vs. predicted values plots. This study revealed the accurate prediction of the mechanical stiffness of lattice parts for the desired set of lattice parameters.
Funder
Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada
Subject
General Materials Science
Reference65 articles.
1. Special Issue—Polymer Foams;Krausch;Polymer,2015
2. Mills, N.J. (2007). Polymer Foams Handbook: Engineering and Biomechanics Applications and Design Guide, Elsevier.
3. Shau-Tarng Lee, C.B., and Park, N.S.R. (2006). Polymeric Foams, Taylor & Francis and CRC.
4. Properties and Microstructure Study of Polyimide Foam Plastic;Zhang;Cell. Polym.,2010
5. Preparation of Polymer-Based Foam for Efficient Oil–Water Separation Based on Surface Engineering;Guo;Soft Matter,2022