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Custom-designed metal bellows require alternate ways to produce the die to shorten lead time. The purpose of this study is to explore the possibility of using Additive Manufactured (AM) polymer die as direct rapid tool (RT) for metal bellow hydroforming.

Finite element analysis (FEA) was used to simulate bellow forming and to evaluate the compatibility of AM die. Fused deposition modelling (FDM) technique is used to fabricate die with Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene (ABS) material. To validate, the width of the metal bellow convolutions obtained from the FEA simulation is compared with convolution formed during the experiment.

FDM-made die can be used for a short production run of bellow hydroforming. FEA simulation shows that stress developed in some regions of die is less and these regions have potential for material reduction. Use of RT for this particular application is limited by the die material, forming pressure, width, convolution span and material of bellow. This supports the importance of FEA validation of RT before fabrication to evaluate and redesign die for the successful outcome of the tool.

The given methodology may be followed to design a RT with minimum material consumption for bellow forming application. Whenever there is a change in bellow design or the die material, simulation has to be done to evaluate the capability of the die. As this study was focused on a short production run for manufacturing one or few bellows, the die life is not a significant factor.

This paper demonstrates about rapid tooling for metal bellow manufacturing using FDM technique for low volume production. Further, FEA is used to identify low stress regions and redesign the die for material reduction before die manufacturing. AM die can be used for developing customized metal bellow for applications such as defense, aerospace, automobiles, etc.

The purpose of this paper is to compare the influence of relative density (RD) and strain rates on failure mechanism and specific energy absorption (SEA) of polyamide lattices ranging from bending to stretch-dominated structures using selective laser sintering (SLS).

Three bending and two stretch-dominated unit cells were selected based on the Maxwell stability criterion. Lattices were designed with three RD and fabricated by SLS technique using PA12 material. Quasi-static compression tests with three strain rates were carried out using Taguchi's L9 experiments. The lattice compressive behaviour was verified with the Gibson–Ashby analytical model.

It has been observed that RD and strain rates played a vital role in lattice compressive properties by controlling failure mechanisms, resulting in distinct post-yielding responses as fluctuating and stable hardening in the plateau region. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) displayed the significant impact of RD and emphasised dissimilar influences of strain rate that vary to cell topology. Bending-dominated lattices showed better compressive properties than stretch-dominated lattices. The interesting observation is that stretch-dominated lattices with over-stiff topology exhibited less compressive properties contrary to the Maxwell stability criterion, whereas strain rate has less influence on the SEA of face-centered and body-centered cubic unit cells with vertical and horizontal struts (FBCCXYZ).

This comparative study is expected to provide new prospects for designing end-user parts that undergo various impact conditions like automotive bumpers and evolving techniques like hybrid and functionally graded lattices.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first work that relates the strain rate with compressive properties and also highlights the lattice behaviour transformation from ductile to brittle while the increase of RD and strain rate analytically using the Gibson–Ashby analytical model.