Mechanical Properties of two novel planar lattice structures

Two novel statically indeterminate planar lattice materials are designed: a new Kagome cell (N-Kagome) and a statically indeterminate square cell (SI-square). Their in-plane mechanical properties, such as stiffness, yielding, buckling and collapse mechanisms are investigated by analytical methods. The analytical stiffness is also verified by means of finite element (FE) simulations. In the case of uniaxial loading, effective modulus, yield strength, buckling strength and critical relative density are compared for various lattice structures. At a critical relative density, the collapse mode will change from buckling to yielding. Elastic buckling under macroscopic shear loading is found to have significant influence on failure of lattice structures, especially at low relative densities. Comparison of the analytical bulk and shear moduli with the Hashin–Shtrikman bounds indicates that the mechanical properties of the SI-square honeycomb are relatively close to being optimal. It is found that compared with the other existing stretching-dominated 2D lattice structures, the N-Kagome cell possesses the largest continuous cavities for fixed relative densities and wall thicknesses, which is convenient for oil storage, disposal of heat exchanger, battery deploying and for other functions. And the initial yield strength of the N-Kagome cell is slightly lower than that of the Kagome cell. The SI-square cell has similar high stiffness and strength as the mixed cell while its buckling resistance is about twice than that of the mixed cell.