3D Printing and other advanced manufacturing methods are driving the increased use of lattice-type structures in structural designs. This is great for reducing mass and increasing the stiffness of components but can be a real pain for those of us doing simulation. Modeling all of those tiny features across a part is difficult to mesh and takes forever to solve.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n PADT has been doing a bit of R&D in this area recently, including a recent <\/em>PHASE II NASA STTR<\/em><\/a> with ASU and KSU. We see a lot of potential in combining generative design and 3D Printing to drive better structures. The key to this effort is efficient and accurate simulation.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n The good news is that we do not have to model every unit cell. Instead, we can do some simulation on a single representative chunk and use the ANSYS Material Designer feature to create an approximate material property that we can use to represent the lattice volume as a homogeneous material. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n In the post below, PADT’s Alex Grishin explains it all with theory, examples, and a clear step-by-step process that you can use for your lattice-filled geometry.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n