HYBRID METAL/COMPOSITE LATTICE STRUCTURES: DESIGN FOR ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING

This paper introduces a numerical tool developed for the design and optimization of axial-symmetrical hybrid composite/metal structures. The metallic trabecular lattice structure is supposed to be manufactured by means of Electron Beam Melting (EBM) additive processes, while the composite skin is supposed to be manufactured by Filament Winding (FW). The developed numerical tool is based on an APDL (Ansys Parametric Design Language) script that can be used in the ANSYS pre-processing environment to create the structure by combining unit cells. The number of unit cells and their topology (number of trusses, radius and length of basic elements and trusses connectivity) are assumed as design variables and therefore they are managed in the frame of optimization processes to generate designs of the metallic trabecular lattice structure. Regarding the composite part (external skin), the number of layers and their orientation have been chosen as design variables. The introduced numerical tool has been used to design several hybrid structures configurations which has been compared in terms of mechanical behaviour under specific boundary condition respect to analogue conventional solid metal structure.