Testing and Analysis of Additively Manufactured Buoyant Parts
Abstract
The computational results of a non-linear buckling analysis and the experimental results for hydrostatic testing of hollow aluminum parts produced using liquid metal jet printing (LMJP) additive manufacturing (AM) are reported. Two variants of hollow metal parts were tested, a single enclosed piece meant to be attached externally to a payload and a two-piece design meant to house a payload. The designs were manufactured using LMJP and underwent hydrostatic testing to determine the viability of using LMJP to produce parts for the undersea warfare community. The designs underwent a non-linear buckling analysis to assess the adequacy of traditional structural engineering techniques for LMJP parts. The non-linear analysis-predicted areas of max stress matched the experimental areas of failure. The non-linear analysis accurately predicted the buckling shape. The predicted magnitude of failure was five to twenty times higher than experimentation. The suspected cause was that the LMJP process reduced the mechanical strength of the aluminum 4008 and introduced anisotropic properties that made it weaker than the standard aluminum alloy used in the finite element analysis. Measuring these properties and constructing a custom computational material to be used for analysis may eliminate the overestimation of failure. This work shows that current tools for structural analysis provide valid insight into the behavior of AM parts but that AM techniques introduce unique material challenges.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jun 01, 2023
- Accession Number
- AD1213561
Entities
People
- Erik M. Martin
Organizations
- Naval Postgraduate School