A state-of-the-art review on types, design, optimization, and additive manufacturing of cellular structures

Cellular structures are made up of an interconnected network of plates, struts, or small unit cells and acquire many unique benefits such as, high strength-to-weight ratio, excellent energy absorption, and minimizing material requirements. When compared with the complicated conventional processes, additive manufacturing (AM) technology is capable of fabricating geometries in almost all types of shapes, even with the small cellular structures inside, by adding material layer-by-layer directly from the digital data file. All major industries have been exploiting the benefits of cellular structures due to their prevalence over a wide range of research fields. To date, there are a few state-of-the-art reviews compiled focusing on a specific area of lattice structures, but many aspects still need to be reviewed. Therefore, this paper aims to provide a comprehensive review of the various lattice morphologies, design, and the AM of the cellular structures. Furthermore, the superior properties of the additively fabricated structure, as well as the applications and challenges, are presented. The conducted review has identified the significant limitations and gaps in the existing literature and has highlighted the areas that need further research in the design, optimization, characteristics, and applications, and the AM of the cellular structures. This review would provide a more precise understanding and the state-of-the-art of AM with the cellular structures for engineers and researchers in both academia and industrial applications.