Mechanical properties of lattice grid composites

An equivalent continuum method only considering the stretching deformation of struts was used to study the in-plane stiffness and strength of planar lattice grid composite materials. The initial yield equations of lattices were deduced. Initial yield surfaces were depicted separately in different 3D and 2D stress spaces. The failure envelope is a polyhedron in 3D spaces and a polygon in 2D spaces. Each plane or line of the failure envelope is corresponding to the yield or buckling of a typical bar row. For lattices with more than three bar rows, subsequent yield of the other bar row after initial yield made the lattice achieve greater limit strength. The importance of the buckling strength of the grids was strengthened while the grids were relative sparse. The integration model of the method was used to study the nonlinear mechanical properties of strain hardening grids. It was shown that the integration equation could accurately model the complete stress–strain curves of the grids within small deformations. The project supported by the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (20060400465) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (10702033). An erratum to this article can be found at