Review on lattice structures for energy absorption properties

Porous/multi-cell structures are widely used in practical engineering due to their excellent energy absorption capacity and lightweight. In recent decades, as an important member of porous structures, lattice structure is found to have extremely excellent energy absorption capacity per unit mass. It has become a hot spot in the research of porous structures for energy absorption properties. There are more and more studies on energy absorption characteristics of lattice structures in the world. This paper reviews and discusses the research work on the energy absorption characteristics of lattice structures in recent years. Firstly, the performance evaluation indexes and loading conditions for energy absorption of the lattice structures are summarized. Then, the lattice structures in the current research literature are classified, and the lattice structures are divided into 2D lattice structure and 3D lattice structure. The 2D lattice structures are divided into general structure, auxetic structure and hierarchical structure, while the 3D lattice structures are divided into truss-based, plate-based, shell-based and hierarchical 3D lattice structure. Furthermore, the energy absorption properties of different types of 2D and 3D lattice structures are introduced in detail. Then, the fabrication process and the engineering application for energy absorption of the lattice structures are introduced. Finally, the future research direction of energy absorption of lattice structure is predicted. Therefore, this work provides a useful platform for researchers and engineers to design energy absorbed lattice structures, and provides a basis for developing new excellent energy absorbed lattice structures.