Study on the impact of material extrusion factors on the compressive characteristics of honeycomb lattice-structured Onyx™ composites

Honeycomb structures have a wide variety of applications in engineering, architecture, and transportation. Latticing, facilitated by additive manufacturing (AM), can effectively accelerate development of customizable structures. This paper introduces a systematic experimental approach to investigate the impact of various material extrusion (MEX) factors on the physical and mechanical characteristics of triangular honeycomb lattice-structured Onyx™ composites. The experimental study is conducted by varying MEX factors such as layer height, infill density, build orientation, infill pattern, and number of walls and their impact on the physical property (density), mechanical property (compressive strength), and structural property of the lattice structure (structural area deviation). The results highlight that the optimal combination for obtaining the maximum compressive strength is 0.1 mm layer height, 50% infill density, 90° build orientation, rectilinear infill pattern, and a wall count of three. The MEX factors like infill density, build orientation and infill pattern have a significant impact on the physical properties. Furthermore, the lattice-structured Onyx™ composite with three walls exhibits buckling phenomenon at a slower rate when compared to the lattice-structured Onyx™ composites with one and two walls. The structural area deviation of the integrated lattice is majorly influenced by the layer height and build orientation. The optimized condition for a higher load bearing capability is employed for developing a topologically optimized lattice-structured bracket. It has potential to be used for sports-action cameras, medical/dental instruments, preoperative surgical planning, crowns and bridges, copings and casts.