Design and analysis of lattice cylindrical shells with tailorable axial and radial thermal expansion

Abstract Current periodical lattice structures with tailorable coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) can be hardly used as engineering structures since these configurations are neither planar nor regular three dimensional geometries. Here, lattice cylindrical shells, which are widely in aerospace engineering, are originally devised and analyzed to exclusively achieve a wide range of tailorable CTEs in both axial and radial directions. The thermal expansion behaviors are systematically calculated by finite element analysis, and the expressions of CTEs for the devised lattice cylindrical shells are well established. Warp effects are found in lattice cylindrical shells winded from planar triangle and planar square due to the sparse arrangement mode, and with few circumferential triangles, the radial CTE is significantly larger than those of the corresponding planar lattices. Tailorable thermal expansion characteristics including zero, large positive and negative values are confirmed. Moreover, in case study with aluminum alloy, stainless steel and invar, a wide range of thermal expansion ranged from − 64 . 6 to 88.0 ppm ∕ ∘ C , which are remarkably larger than those of constituents, can be easily achieved through the devised lattice cylindrical shells. The wide range of CTEs obtained here can promote these lattice cylindrical shells to be used as structures under temperature variation service environment for purpose of obtaining dimensional stability and thermal expansion compensation.