Energy Absorption of Additively Manufactured Porous Metals with Disordered Cells

Abstract

Lightweight porous metals are focused on as energy absorbing materials for automobiles. Open-cell porous metals were manufactured through additive manufacturing process. Their cell structures were designed based on Voronoi diagrams using a commercial 3D-CAD software. Both ordered and disordered cell structures with the same porosities were successfully designed in this study. Compression tests and explicit finite element analysis revealed heterogeneous deformation behaviors in ordered porous metals. On the other hand, the porous metals with disordered cell structure showed relatively isotropic and uniform deformation, which is suitable as energy absorbing materials. Controlling the disordered cell structure designed by 3D-Voronoi diagram enables to develop the advanced porous metals having various mechanical properties.