Choosing the Right Lattice Structure in 3D Printing

When you ask those in the know what the benefits of additive manufacturing are, there is one thing that comes up time and again: design freedom. With the right design software, users can create incredible parts that are lightweight and more optimized than what can be achieved with traditional manufacturing. This is especially important when it comes to lattices, which are unique to 3D printing and widely appreciated for their characteristics. This is why many different software have enabled the creation of lattices, including Altair Inspire, which includes complex lattice structures.

You may already know Altair Inspire. Coming from Altair Engineering, a global leader in computational science and artificial intelligence headquartered in the USA, Altair Inspire is one of the company’s software solutions that is uniquely suited to additive manufacturing. This concept design tool has a number of interesting features that are well optimized for additive manufacturing. The ability to use the tool with different lattices is a particularly favored characteristic according to TrueInsight, the premium channel partner for Altair Engineering.

These repeated patterns, inspired by biomimicry, can fill a volume or conform to a surface and for the most part can only be made with additive manufacturing. This is one of the reasons that they can be confused with infill as they can be used for that purpose. Their unique benefit is that they enable a superior strength-to-weight ratio due to minimizing material while still ensuring part performance.