Numerical modeling of selective laser melting lattice structures: A review of approaches

With the recent development of metal additive manufacturing processes, the fabrication of lattice structures became more feasible. Mainly, with the selective laser melting process, lattices of various topologies have been designed and manufactured with superior properties. Their excellent characteristics have drawn the attention of major leading industrial sectors. Nevertheless, their full-scale adoption is still limited, owing to the lack of a standard numerical model that can accurately represent the lattices' mechanical and failure response. The main challenge in developing such a model is the high computational cost associated with the fine three-dimensional meshes of the struts. Besides, the need to incorporate the struts' defects into the finite element model while also accounting for the material behavior significantly increases the complexity of the model. In this context, this paper presents a review of the numerical models explicitly developed to simulate the lattices' behavior. The potential of modeling lattices at the macro-scale level using reduce order elements will also be discussed. Overall, the aim of this paper is first to identify the important numerical parameters needed to construct the optimum numerical setup, and second to pinpoint the gaps that can be worked upon to develop a more reliable and computationally effective model.