Compressive Response and Energy Absorption of Additively Manufactured Elastomers with Varied Simple Cubic Architectures

Abstract

Additive manufacturing, and particularly the vat photopolymerization process, enables the fabrication of complex geometries at high resolution and small length scales, making it well-suited for fabricating cellular structures (e.g., foams and lattices). Among these, elastomeric cellular structures are of growing interest due to their tunable compliance and energy dissipation. However, comprehensive data on the compressive behavior of these structures remains limited, especially for investigating the structure-property effects from changing the density and distribution of material within the cellular structure. This study explores how the mechanical response of polyurethane-based simple cubic structures changes when varying volume fraction, unit cell length, and unit cell patterning, which have not been systematically investigated previously in additively manufactured elastomers. Increasing volume fraction from 10% to 50% yielded significant changes in compressive stress–strain performance (decreasing strain at 0.5 MPa by 41.6% and increasing energy absorption density by 3962.5%). Although changing the unit cell length between 2.5 and 7 mm in ~30 mm parts did not result in statistically different stress–strain responses, modifying the configuration of struts of different thicknesses across designs with 30% volume fraction altered the stress–strain behavior (differences of 12.5% in strain at 0.5 MPa and 109.4% for energy absorption density). Power law relationships were developed to understand the interactions between volume fraction, unit cell length, and elastic modulus, and experimental data showed strong fits (R 2 > 0.91). These findings enhance the understanding of how multiple structural design aspects influence the performance of elastomeric cellular materials, providing a foundation for informing strategic design of tailorable materials for diverse mechanical applications.