When
Thursday, December 4, 2025, 4:00 p.m.
Subhadip Sahoo
PhD Student
Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering
University of Arizona
"Microstructure-Informed Anisotropic Material Modeling and Performance Optimization of Additively Manufactured Metallic Lattice Structures"
AME Lecture Hall, Room S202 | Zoom link
Abstract: Additive manufacturing enables architected lattice materials with unprecedented geometric freedom, but their performance is shaped not only by topology but also by the material’s microstructural features (such as grain orientation, morphology, and surface roughness) that emerge at the scale of the struts and thin walls. The layer-by-layer deposition process, solidification conditions, thermal gradients, and feature size effects produce microstructural features that vary with build direction and local geometry, resulting in distinctly anisotropic mechanical behavior. Capturing this direction-dependent response and validating it experimentally under relevant loading conditions is essential, particularly for architected systems such as lattice and thin-walled structures that amplify local stress interactions and magnify the influence of material anisotropy. This work develops a microstructure-informed anisotropic material model and simulation framework to accurately capture the mechanical behavior of additively manufactured metallic lattice structures (AMLS) at the strut level. By integrating experimentally validated constitutive models with multiaxial simulations of lattice architectures, the study reveals how material anisotropy and topology jointly govern stress distribution, deformation modes, and overall structural performance. The results highlight the importance of selecting material-geometry combinations based on microstructure-driven behavior and establish a foundation for future optimization approaches that incorporate anisotropic material response into data-driven topology-optimization workflows.
Bio: Subhadip is a PhD student and graduate researcher in mechanical engineering at the University of Arizona, specializing in computational solid mechanics, additive manufacturing and advanced material modeling. His research focuses on uncovering and predicting the microstructure-driven mechanical behavior of additively manufactured lattice structures (AMLS) and thin-walled components fabricated from Ti-alloys and GRCop-42 alloy respectively. He has developed a microstructure-informed anisotropic elastoplastic material model for accurately capturing the multiaxial response of AMLS and is actively advancing uncertainty propagation and topology optimization frameworks for architected materials. Subhadip holds a BS degree in mechanical engineering and began his research journey as an undergraduate researcher. He earned his MS degree from the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru, in 2022, where his work centered on topology optimization and lightweight structural design. His long-term goal is to bridge material modeling, AM process understanding and AI/ML-driven design to advance next-generation engineered materials and structures.