Theoretical and Applied Fracture Mechanics 100 (2019) 225–232

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Theoretical and Applied Fracture Mechanics

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/tafmec

On the fatigue behavior of additive manufactured lattice structures T

a a c,d a
Ali Zargarian , Mohsen Esfahanian , Javad Kadkhodapour , Saeid Ziaei-Rad ,
⁎
Delaram Zamanib,
a
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Isfahan University of Technology, Isfahan, Iran
b
Department of Biomedical Engineering, Amirkabir University of Technology, Tehran, Iran
c
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Shahid Rajaee Teacher Training University, Tehran, Iran
d
Institute for Materials Testing, Materials Science and Strength of Materials (IMWF), University of Stuttgart, Stuttgart, Germany

A R T I C LE I N FO A B S T R A C T

Keywords: This paper studies the effect of different factors on high cycle fatigue failure of additive manufactured lattice
Finite element structure by means of numerical simulation and compare the results with experimental data in the literature.
Fatigue Finite element method in conjunction with failure event-based algorithm is used to simulate high cycle fatigue.
Additive manufacturing The proposed algorithm is efficient and accurate for our purpose. It is shown that relative density, the fatigue
Lattice structure
strength of the bulk material and cell geometry determined the coefficient of power law function while the solid
distribution and bulk material fatigue properties affect the exponent. A power law expression is proposed to
predict the fatigue strength of the cellular material. The effect of different parameters on constants of the
equation is discussed in detail. The results of this study render the need for performing a vast amount of ex-
periment to determine fatigue of properties of cellular materials.

1. Introduction known as a modern technique particularly used in orthopedics appli-

Cellular solids are a branch of material that is made of a network of
edges and faces which construct distinct cells. They usually categorized
as open cell and closed cell. In open cell cellular materials, the edges
(struts, ligaments) are the main constructive elements which meet at
vertices. In close cell ones, the faces (walls) are the main constructive
elements which meet at edges. The fluid could pass through the open
cell structure while it is not impossible for closed cell ones. This char-
acteristic along with other features such as low weight, high stiffness to
weight ratio and flexibility in tailoring mechanical properties made
them an absolute choice of orthopedic surgery for bone replacement
material. Such bio-materials should have enough permeability to let
cell growth and let implant and living tissue fuse together. On the other
hand, they should have elastic properties that match elastic properties
of bone to avoid stress shielding effect. Gibson was one of the pioneers
who made a comprehensive study on structure and properties of cel-
lular materials. The cellular materials are abundant in nature and could
inspire researchers to invent new artificial materials base on natural
ones.
Meyers et al. [1] conducted an exhaustive review of the structure
and properties of biological cellular materials. The method of selective
laser melting which is an additive manufacturing process (AM) is
cations to fabricate asymmetric and complex three-dimensional sam-
ples. This method achieved by fusing fine metal powders together. The
fast developments in additive manufacturing techniques open new
horizons for the production of open cellular solids with desirable me-
chanical properties [2–7]. During daily activities, bone replacement
implants go under fluctuating forces. Consequently, fatigue failure of
the implant should be considered in the design stage. The aluminum
foams are one of those cellular materials that their fatigue behavior
studied extensively [8–15]. The aluminum foams have no biocompat-
ibility, and their fatigue behavior should be investigated to use in
structural applications mainly as the core of sandwich panels.
Although the structure of the open cell and closed-cell foam is dif-
ferent, three different step could be observed in their fatigue failure. In
the first step, within few cycles, the strain increases rapidly. In the
second step, the accumulative strain does not change significantly. This
step takes 10 4 –106 cycles. In the third step, cumulative strain raises
exponentially, which eventually causes failure of the specimen in a few
cycles. In most cases, the fatigue experiments were performed under
fully compressive loading and the ratio of maximum to minimum load
is about to 0.1 to ensure that the specimens remain in their place during
the test.
Open cellular cell materials could be categorized as stretch

⁎
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: d.zamani@aut.ac.ir (D. Zamani).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tafmec.2019.01.012
Received 9 May 2018; Received in revised form 2 November 2018; Accepted 11 January 2019
Available online 25 January 2019
0167-8442/ © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
A. Zargarian et al. Theoretical and Applied Fracture Mechanics 100 (2019) 225–232

dominated and bending dominated. In the former ones, the struts un- cellular materials.
dergo axial force when a macro stress applied to media. In latter ones,
the macro stress results in bending moment in the structure. The stretch 2. Numerical simulation
dominated structures are stiffer than bending dominated ones. The
aluminum foams could be considered as bending dominated structures. The details of finite element modeling and numerical simulation
Thus, macroscopic fluctuating uni-axial stress results in the bending algorithm is presented in this section.
moment which results in tension stress in the outer fiber of struts. The
tension stress causes initiation and propagation of cracks in the struts 2.1. Geometrical and numerical modeling
up to final fracture of struts. By successive failure of struts, the structure
loses its load bearing capacity and the stiffness decreases which result Four open cell structure with regular shape is modeled in this study:
in the final collapse of the whole structure. Diamond (D), Rhombic Dodecahedron (RD), Kelvin (K) and truncated
Biocompatibility, high strength to weight ratio and other attractive cuboctahedron (TC).
mechanical properties made Titanium alloys an excellent choice for Timoshenko beam theory was used for modeling struts as beams.
orthopedic applications. New developments in additive manufacturing Each strut is divided into three sections. Head and tail lengths were
techniques of metals have made making lattice structures that mimic equal to the nominal radius of the strut. These two sections were di-
mechanical properties of the bone possible. The fatigue behavior of vided by two elements each. The area of cross-section of the tail and
titanium scaffolds was the subject of many topics of research [5,16–19]. head at vertices was twice the nominal area of struts’ cross-section and
The result of these studies shows that the fatigue performance of Tita- linearly decreases to a nominal value when reaching to the middle
nium lattice structure is comparable to aluminum foams. The en- section. In this way, the role of joint stiffness on the structure response
durance limit of Ti-6Al-4V scaffolds is about 0.1–0.25 of their yield could be considered. The middle section was divided into three ele-
strength. This value is less than the fatigue strength of bulk titanium ments. There are many non-uniformities in the additively manufactured
alloy which is about 0.4 yield strength [16]. This conspiracy could be lattice structure, for instance, the struts thickness varies in different
contributed to the unpolished surface of struts, notch sensitivity of ti- sites, which could be modeled by changing the cross-section of elements
tanium alloy, significant porosity in struts, residual stress, and micro- in the middle of struts randomly. The Gaussian distribution is used to
structure. The mechanical treatment to improve fatigue strength (such assign random radius to strut’s cross-section. Parameter rdev defines
as shot peening) is not possible in a lattice structure, and heat treatment normalized standard deviation and maximum deviation was set to 2rdev .
could be used instead. Leuders et al. [20] showed that hot isostatic Struts may have some waviness in their geometry that causes applying
pressing treatment could considerably increase the fatigue life of Ti- bending moment in presence of axial loads which weakens struts. This
6Al-4V scaffolds. Furthermore, S. Zhao et al. [21] investigated three irregularity is modeled by moving the section of middle elements ran-
kinds of meshes (cubic, G7, and rhombic dodecahedron) of Ti-6Al-4V domly by standard deviation r × rdev where r is cross-sections radius. All
alloys to illustrate the relationship between cell morphology and it is the elements have the same length of 1000 micrometers. The expression
compressive fatigue behavior. Fatigue mechanism for these three usually used to describe the dependence of relative density to strut
groups is the interaction of cyclic ratcheting and growth of fatigue crack geometry with a radius of r and the length l is as follows:
on struts due to the bucketing and bending deformation of struts. The
biological responses of 3D printed porous titanium alloy mesh struc- ρ∗ r 2
= C⎛ ⎞
tures constructed by electron beam melting was investigated by K. C. ρs ⎝l⎠ (1)
Nune et al. [22] which showed conductivity to osteoblast functions. Where geometrical constant C depends on the geometry of cell. The
Some principal factors that have an impact on fatigue behavior such as above equation does not consider multiple counting materials in the
stress relieving (SR), hot isostatic pressing (HIP) and chemical etching vertex. Gibson [26] corrected above equation and presented a vertex
(CE) as well as some beneficial tools to improve fatigue performance corrected form:
were studied by Brecht Van Hooreweder et al. [23].
In our previous work, we proposed an algorithm to predict fatigue ρ∗ r 2 r 3
= C1 ⎛ ⎞ − C2 ⎛ ⎞
strength of titanium porous lattice structures [24]. The similar metho- ρs l
⎝ ⎠ ⎝l⎠ (2)
dology was used by Hedayati et al. [25] to predict fatigue behavior of
Again, C1 and C2 depend on the cell geometry. For deriving constants,
porous biomaterials. The fatigue properties of cellular solids (like their
we will assume that each vertex has a volume equal to that of the sphere
other mechanical properties) are mainly affected by four factors: the 4
with strut radius. Assuming that the volume of joint is equal to 3 πr 3 and
bulk material’s mechanical properties, relative density, the geometry of
extension of joint is 0.7rm in each side, where rm is the average radius of
cells, distribution of material within a structure which define the shape
struts. C1 and C2 is calculated for Kelvin structure as follows:
of walls or struts. Studying the effect of these factors on fatigue prop-
erties of lattice structures is very costly and time-consuming. This is due ρ∗ Vs
ρs
= V∗
to the fact that fatigue test needs many samples and the cost of the
4
additive manufactured samples are relatively high (approximately 100$ Vs = Vvertex + Vstrut = Nvertex ( 3 πr 3) + Nstrut (l − 2 × 0.7r ) πr 2
per specimen). On the other hand, fatigue testing is very time-con- =
4
12( 3 πr 3) + 24(l − 2 × 0.7r ) πr 2
suming and testing equipment is more expensive than monotonic
= 24πr 2 − 17.6πr 3
testing.
In the current study, numerical simulation was employed to study V ∗ = (2 2 l)3 = 22.627l3
ρ∗ 24πr 2 − 17.6πr 3 r 2 r 3
the effect of various parameters on the endurance limit of additively
ρs
=
Vs
V∗
=
6.158l3
= 3.33 ()
l
− 2.44 ()
l (3)
manufactured lattice structure. The result of this study could be ex-
panded to other porous materials with open cell structure. In particular The finite element model has 8 × 5 × 5 cell dimension and aspect ratio
those with bending dominating structure. In the following section, the of 1.6. The experimental specimen in the literature have the height to
geometry of different lattice structure and assumption in generating width ratio of 1.5–2 .
finite element model is discussed. Furthermore, the details of proposed A master node was created in the middle of loading plane and all the
fatigue algorithm is presented. In continue, the result of finite element other nodes were coupled to it rigidly. The master node at bottom plane
simulation is presented and the effect of different parameters on fatigue was constrained in all degrees of freedom and master node at top plane
performance is examined. Finally, a conclusion of the result is made and has the same condition except for translation in loading plane on which
a simple yet effective expression is proposed to predict fatigue life of a constant force in loading direction was applied to top master node.

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A. Zargarian et al. Theoretical and Applied Fracture Mechanics 100 (2019) 225–232

2.2. Fatigue failure algorithm minimum remaining life at simulation of step s.

i−1 s ⎞
In solid materials, fatigue failure is started with crack initiation in ⎛ nmin
nij = Nf ij ⎜1 − ∑
first cycles which propagates to the main crack in later cycles and fi- Nf sj ⎟
⎝ s=1 ⎠ (6)
nally lead to fracture of material. During the application of cyclic
loading, the constituent struts in the open cell cellular materials un-
dergo cyclic stresses. Struts failure is the result of a fatigue cracks in- 3. Strut(s) which its remaining life is minimum was eliminated from
itiation and propagation due to alternating stress. Crack propagation the model and damage of other struts were increased accordingly,
i
n min
decreases the stiffness of struts which results in stress redistribution in ( ).
Nf i
the structure in each cycle. The change in stiffness due to strut failure is j

much significant compared with the change due to crack propagation in

struts. Consequently, stiffness alternation should be considered in each
cycle to model fatigue process perfectly. However, this is very time-
consuming and impractical in numerical simulation.
Fortunately, the effect of crack initiation and propagation on the
decrease of structure stiffness could be ignored compared to struts
failure. Consequently, fatigue failure was modeled as the continuous
failure of struts and structure stiffness assumed to be intact between
struts failure and only updated after each struts’ failure.
Fatigue properties of struts were derived from data obtained from
the literature. In additive manufactured lattice structure, there are
numerous parameters that could affect fatigue properties of struts.
Some of these parameters will be discussed here. The additive manu-
facturing process is controlled by various parameters such as energy
input of ray, scanning speed, scanning strategy, the size of particles in
powder, the temperature of building chamber, layer thickness, etc. All
these parameters could affect the quality of built structure and fatigue
strength. On the other hand, as the additive manufacturing is a layer by
layer process, building new layer results in the heat treatment in pre-
vious layers that could alter the microstructure of struts and conse-
quently their fatigue properties. One way to consider all these com-
plicated effects is to conduct mechanical testing directly on extracted
struts from built structure. However, this would be not practical as we
are interested in predicting fatigue behavior of lattice structure before
manufacturing it. Edwards et al. [27] and Edwards et al. [28] con-
ducted a series of fatigue tests to determine fatigue properties speci-
mens made by EBM and SLM process. They did not any surface ma-
chining or heat treatment on specimens, so the surface effect and
residual stress effect were considered in the results. However, the fa-
tigue properties of struts would much differ from those of bigger spe-
cimens due to size effects. For example for aluminum foams Zhou et al.
[11] found that strength of struts and the bulk alloy is different and is
higher for struts. The following equation was used to express fatigue
property of the struts:
bs
SNf = As Nf (4)
The simulation cycles through steps 1 to 4 until abrupt change in the
stiffness was observed. The failure criterion is a predefined percentage
of stiffness loss or abrupt change in the macro-strain of the finite ele-
ment model. There is little difference between two criteria and result in
similar fatigue life. The calculated life is considered as fatigue life of
lattice structure under current cyclic macro stress.
3. Results and discussion
In this section, the effect of different parameters like cell topology,
relative density, etc. were investigated. For each model, fatigue life of
structure was predicted by numerical simulation at four different stress
levels, and the S-N curve was plotted. The S-N curve is linear in loga-
rithmic scale. Consequently, a power-law equation was used to describe
fatigue strength:
b∗
S ∗ = A∗ N f∗ (7)
The effect of different geometrical and mechanical parameters on A∗
and b∗ is discussed in what follows.
3.1. Effect of fatigue property of bulk material
It was assumed that strut material has S-N curve which could be
expressed as:
bs
SNf = As Nf (8)
S-N curve for different values of As and constant value of bs = −0.3 is
depicted in Fig. 1. The strength of cellular structure was increased by
increasing fatigue strength of the bulk material as expected.
Values of A∗ and b∗ are presented for different values of As in
Table 1. The b∗ is almost constant while A∗ increases by the increase in
As . For better illustration of data, A∗ is plotted against As in Fig. 2.
The A∗ increases linearly by As so their relationship could be simply
expressed as:

where SNf is the fatigue strength in MPa and Nf is the number of cycles A∗ = CA As (9)
to failure. Mean stress effect is also considered by the Soderberg In the above, it should be noted that CA is function of relative density,
equation: cell topology and struts’ shape.
σa σ S-N curve for different values of bs and constant value of
+ m =1
SNf Sy (5)
where σa is mean stress while σm represents the fluctuating. Yield
Strength of the struts, Sy , and Young’s modulus are supposed to be
900 MPa and 100 GPa, respectively.
In the fatigue simulation, each step of simulation corresponds to the
failure of one strut. The methodology is described below:

1. The life of strut j at stimulation step of i, Nf ij was determined by

alternating strength and mean stress derived from step 1 in con-
junction with Basquin’s law (Eq. (3)) and Soderberg mean correction
method (Eq. (4)).
2. Due to the application of cyclic macro-stress, the remaining life of
each strut, (nij ), should be calculated. For this purpose, the Miner’s
rule was used, considering damage accumulation of previous failure
events. In the following, the nmins
is the life of particular strut with Fig. 1. S-N curve for different values of As .

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A. Zargarian et al. Theoretical and Applied Fracture Mechanics 100 (2019) 225–232

Table 1
Values of b∗ and A∗ for different values of As .

b∗ A∗ (MPa) As (MPa)

−0.33 78 1000
−0.32 225 3000
−0.31 381 5000
−0.33 660 7000
−0.33 935 10,000

Fig. 4. Variation of A∗ vs. As .

Fig. 2. Variation of A∗ vs. As .

Fig. 5. S-N curve for different cell topology for a relative density of 0.2.

different cell topology has a different value of strut thickness at a same

relative density and second is that angle between nodal loads and strut
axis is not same for different cell topologies which result in different
values of bending and axial stress. The S-N curves are shown in Fig. 5
for four different cell topology namely, Diamond, Rhombic Dodecahe-
dron, Truncated Cuboctahedron and Kelvin at a relative density of 0.2.
Fig. 3. S-N curve for different values of bs .
The Kelvin structure has the highest fatigue strength while rhombic
dodecahedron has the lowest. The values of A∗ and b∗ for different cell
Table 2 topologies and relative densities are presented in Tables 3 and 4. The
Values of b∗ and A∗ for different values of bs . results reveal that A∗ is highly dependent on cell topology while b∗ does
b∗ A∗ (MPa) bs (MPa) not change significantly that means it is independent of cell topology.

−0.115 336 −0.1

−0.228 375 −0.2
3.3. Effect of relative density
−0.329 349 −0.3
−0.416 305 −0.4
As revealed in Tables 3 and 4, it could be seen that value of b∗ is
independent of relative density and cell topology while A∗ depends on
As = 7000 MPa is depicted in Fig. 3. Values of A∗ and b∗ are presented in both. Mechanical properties of cellular materials are usually related to
Table 2, for different values of bs . The A∗ is almost constant while b∗ those of bulk material and relative density by a power law function in
increases by the increase in bs . b∗ is plotted against bs in Fig. 4. the form of:
As aforementioned, b∗ increases linearly by bs and their relationship
could be expressed as:
b∗ = Cb bs (10) Table 3
Values of A∗ for different topologies and relative densities.
It can be seen that bs is the function of relative density and struts’ shape.
A∗
It could be concluded that change in fatigue properties of struts
directly affect the fatigue properties of the cellular material. K RD D Relative density

239.883 105 166 0.1

3.2. Effect of cell topology
1148.154 380 724 0.2
3235.937 933 1862 0.3
Cell topology could affect fatigue behavior in two ways. First is that

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A. Zargarian et al. Theoretical and Applied Fracture Mechanics 100 (2019) 225–232

Table 4
Values of b∗ for different topologies and relative densities.

b∗

K RD D Relative density

−0.45 −0.44 −0.42 0.1

−0.44 −0.43 −0.42 0.2
−0.45 −0.44 −0.42 0.3

n
P∗ ρ∗
= C ⎜⎛ ⎞⎟
Ps ⎝ ρs ⎠ (11)

In which, P ∗ and Ps are properties of cellular and bulk materials, ρ∗ and

ρs are density of cellular and bulk materials, respectively and para- Fig. 7. S-N curve for different values of rd ev .
meters C and n are constants depending on the topology of cells and
shape of walls.
For fatigue strength, it has been shown that fatigue strength of
cellular material is linearly related to the bulk material so we could be
written:
nA
A∗ ρ∗
= CA ⎜⎛ ⎟⎞
As ⎝ ρs ⎠ (12)

In which, CA and nA are constants depending on topology of cells and

shape of walls. As it could be seen in Fig. 6, the value of nA is almost
same for all structures and is equal to 2. For Young’s modulus, n, is 2 for
bending dominated structures and is 1 for stretch dominated structures.

3.4. Effect of irregularities in struts

Fig. 8. Variation of b∗ vs. rd ev .
The deviation of cross-section thickness from mean value is con-
trolled by parameter rdev and the waviness by roff . The S-N curve is
plotted for various values of rdev in Fig. 7 for As = 10, 000 and bs = −0.3
in Kelvin structure.
It is clear that by increasing value of rdev the fatigue strength dra-
matically decreases. It should be mentioned that the upper limit for rdev
is 0.5 which means there is the possibility of struts with zero thickness
(broken struts). As reported values for this parameter is less than 0.3,
the higher values were not studied. The values of b∗ and A∗ are pre-
sented in Figs. 8 and 9. It shows that fatigue behavior of cellular solids
is very sensitive to the variation of a cross-section along the axis of
struts. Higher deviation means that sections with very low thickness
and very high thickness increases in strut which result in a very high-
stress level that causes early failure in struts and lower fatigue strength
of the structure. The results show that the difference between fatigue
strength is low for values of rdev = 0.05 and rdev = 0.1. It could be con-
cluded that the deviation of 0.1 is a good balance between quality of Fig. 9. Variation of A∗ vs. rd ev .
structure and its fatigue strength. So it could be used as a measure to
check the quality of lattice structures.
The S-N curve is depicted for different values of roff in Fig. 10. By

Fig. 10. S-N curves for different values of ro ff .

Fig. 6. Fatigue strength vs. relative density for different cell topologies.

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A. Zargarian et al. Theoretical and Applied Fracture Mechanics 100 (2019) 225–232

Fig. 11. Variation of b∗ vs. ro ff .

Fig. 13. Displacement-cycles curves for different values of mean stress and
same stress amplitude.

Sa
SGoodman
Nf =
⎛1 −
⎝
( ) ⎞⎠
Sm
Su (13)

Sa
SGerber
Nf =
Sm 2
⎛1 −
⎝
( ) ⎞⎠
Su (14)

where Sm is mean stress value and Su is the ultimate strength of the

Fig. 12. Variation of A∗ vs. ro ff .
increasing of waviness in structure, the fatigue strength decreases. The
increase of waviness causes that axial load in strut to create a bending
moment in strut due to the offset of the cross-section from medial axis.
However, this effect is less important compared to deviation from a
mean thickness of struts. The values of b∗ and A∗ are presented in
Figs. 11 and 12.
material.
For cellular material, ultimate strength is ambiguous. Thus plateau
stress used instead. Experimental data show that yield stress and pla-
teau stress is close to yielding stress for bending dominated structures.
The S-N curve for alternating stress, Goodman stress, and Gerber stress
are depicted in Figs. 14–16.
The results show that both Goodman and Gerber equation could
reflect the influence of mean stress. However, the Goodman equation is
preferred because it gives value of b∗ closer to value of bs which we have
seen should be almost same for acceptable irregularities in struts.
4. Experimental data validation

There are many data in the literature that could be used to validate
3.5. Effect of mean stress the result of numerical simulations obtained in the previous section.
A study carried out by Hrabe et al. [16] was the source of the first
There is no experimental investigation on the effect of mean stress dataset. They used electron beam melting techniques (EBM) to build
on the fatigue behavior of lattice structures. The compression loading titanium lattice structure. The structures have diamond cell shape and
ratio R was 0.1 in most research. To study this issue, several simulations relative density was in the range of 0.17–0.4.
with the same value of stress amplitude and three different mean Li et al. [17] employed electron beam melting to construct titanium
stresses were conducted. In conventional metals, compressive mean mesh structure with the rhombic-dodecahedron unit cell geometry and
stress results in higher fatigue life while tensile mean stress has detri- relative densities in the range of 0.15–0.4. It has to be mentioned that
mental effects. However, this statement could not be applied to bending they conducted fatigue test under compressive loading.
dominated cellular material. In such materials, any compressive or The result of this study was used as the source of the second dataset.
tensile stress results in bending moment in struts. The bending moment
generates tensile stress on the outer surface of struts which causes
propagation of fatigue cracks. Thus both tensile and mean stress has a
negative effect on the fatigue strength of bending dominated lattice
structures.
The response of lattice structure with Kelvin unit cell with a relative
density of 0.2 is depicted in Fig. 13 for three different value of com-
pressive means stress. The fluctuating stress is 6.3 MPa for all cases and
mean stress is 7.7, 9.2 and 11.6 MPa.
By increase in mean stress, the fatigue life decreases, as 50% in-
crease in mean stress results in 50% decrease in fatigue life. To consider
mean stress effect, two famous equations, known as modified Goodman
and Gerber equation are compared. In this way mean stress-corrected
fatigue strength for these two equations could be expressed as:
Fig. 14. S-N curve for different mean stress and amplitude stress.

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A. Zargarian et al.
Fig. 15. Modified S-N curve by Goodman equation.
Fig. 16. Modified S-N curve by Gerber equation.
The third dataset was obtained from Yavari et al. [29] study which
investigated fatigue life of titanium scaffold made with Selective Laser
Melting (SLM) method and with three different cell geometry. The re-
lative density of this structure was in the range of 0.11–0.37.
As an example, the results of numerical simulation and experi-
mental test is compared in Fig. 17. The values of A∗ and b∗ for
Fig. 17. Comparison of numerical simulation and experimental S-N curves for diamond titanium lattice structure made by EBM method [16].
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Theoretical and Applied Fracture Mechanics 100 (2019) 225–232
experimental studies are presented in Tables 5 and 6.
As predicted by numerical simulations, the results of these experi-
mental studies showed that the relationship between fatigue strength
and cycles to failure obeyed the power law. The coefficient of power
function was dependent on relative density, geometry and fatigue
properties of the bulk material while the exponent was only dependent
on the fatigue behavior of the bulk material and struts irregularities
which is highly influenced by the manufacturing process.
5. Conclusion
Effect of different factors on fatigue behavior of additive manu-
factured lattice structures were studied using a numerical simulation of
fatigue process. The result of simulations showed that the relationship
between cycles to failure and fatigue strength (S-N curve) obeys the
power law. The effect of fatigue properties of struts, relative density,
cell topology and solid distribution on coefficient and exponent of
power-law function was investigated. The results of simulations showed
that the exponent is independent of cell topology and relative density
and is just a function of fatigue property of struts and irregularities in
the struts. On the other hand, the coefficient of power law was influ-
enced by all mentioned factors. It was shown that the fatigue properties
of struts have a direct effect on the fatigue strength of lattice structure
and the relationship is linear. The fatigue strength of lattice structure
was increased by an increase in relative density. The relationship could
be expressed by a power law. The exponent was about 2 for bending
dominated structures. The topology of cells had a great influence on
fatigue strength of lattice structures. Among topologies investigated in
the current study, the Kelvin unit cell has the highest fatigue strength at
certain relative density. Finally, it was shown that as the shape of struts
become more irregular the fatigue strength of lattice structure decreases
rapidly.
The influence of mean stress effect was also investigated and it was
concluded that Goodman equation could perfectly consider the effect of
mean stress. In conclusion, the fatigue behavior of open cell cellular
materials could be expressed by the following equation:
A. Zargarian et al. Theoretical and Applied Fracture Mechanics 100 (2019) 225–232

Table 5
Values of A∗ and b∗ obtained from experimental studies.
Experiment RhD-EBM Experiment D-SLM Experiment RhD-SLM

Relative density 0.16 0.20 0.25 0.11 0.20 0.28 0.16 0.23 0.30

A∗ 101 120 82 110 363 612 106 244 727

b∗ −0.28 −0.25 0.19 −0.32 −0.32 −0.32 −0.27 −0.29 −0.32

Table 6 cellular al alloy, Mater. Sci. Eng.: A 269 (1) (1999) 38–48.
Values of A∗ and b∗ obtained from experimental studies (continued). [10] O. Olurin, K. McCullough, N. Fleck, M. Ashby, Fatigue crack propagation in alu-
minium alloy foams, Int. J. Fatigue 23 (5) (2001) 375–382.
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