TOWARDS A NEW GENERATION OF LATTICE STEEL STRUCTURES FABRICATED WITH WIRE-ARC ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING
Synopsis
Metal Additive Manufacturing (AM), and in particular Wire-and-Arc Additive Manufacturing (WAAM), offers a promising solution to realize new sustainable and optimized steel structures. Lattice structures are characterized by high efficiency (in terms of high stiffness and minimized material use), however their application at the scale of the single element (“meso-scale”), such as beams and columns, is still hampered by the issue of the connection at nodes (in terms of geometry complexity, assembly and production cost). The ambition of this work is to propose a new class of efficient structural elements by exploiting the efficiency of lattice structures at the meso-scale through the adoption of WAAM production technology. The increased efficiency of lattice structures is provided by their high structural performances and reduced environmental impact, through the adoption of digital fabrication and optimization techniques for construction. The experimental tests were carried out on the single components of lattice elements: the single bars at different inclinations, the intersected bars and the elementary cells.