G-Puzzle: Infilling 3D Models With Reinforced G-Lattices

Abstract

G-Lattices (proposed by Armanfar and Gunpinar) are a group of novel periodic and strut-based lattice structures for additive manufacturing. It has been demonstrated that these structures have superior mechanical properties under compression compared to conventional lattice structures. This paper introduces an extension of G-Lattices (i.e., reinforced G-Lattices) that also have better mechanical performance under inclined (compression) loading conditions. For different inclined loads, separate reinforced G-Lattices are first optimized, and a G-Lattice library is formed. For a part under loading, displacement vectors in each unit cell (cubic domains within the inner region of the part) are then extracted. Based on these vectors, (pre-optimized) reinforced G-Lattices are selected from the G-Lattice library and utilized (as infills) in the unit cells. This process is called G-Puzzling. As a proof of concept, parts under three different inclined loading conditions are infilled using reinforced G-Lattices and investigated based on stiffness-over-volume ratios. According to these experiments, the resulting parts, on average, exhibit more than 30% better mechanical performance compared to FBCCZ (a conventional lattice structure).