Modelling and FE simulation of 3D printed Co-Cr Lattice Structures for biomedical applications

The lattice structures are a particular type of structures made by the repetition of a unit cell and show great design opportunities. In addition, their structure is really close to some physiological tissues, which can allow their use to develop prostheses needed to the rehabilitation or replacement of a body part. However, their use is still limited, mainly due to the lack of methods to fully implement them during the production and to virtually predict all their mechanical properties. This problem is mostly caused by the computational effort and number of design parameters that the implementation of these materials in a Finite Element Modelling (FEM) analysis requires. Moreover, many common CAD software have a lack of materials libraries and geometry flexibility.