3D interfacial material-locking structures to promote bonding strength of dissimilar materials

Enhancing the bonding strength between dissimilar materials offers significant advantages to numerous industries that rely on advanced manufacturing techniques. While existing methods such as surface treatment or chemical composition modification have proven effective in promoting bonding, their incorporation into automatic 3D printing processes remains challenging. In contrast, the design of interface geometry has emerged as a successful approach that avoids extensive modifications and manual interventions. However, current research primarily focuses on 2D cases and overlooks the vast potential of 3D interfacial geometries enabled by 3D printing. This study aims to fill this knowledge gap by exploring the effectiveness of various 3D interfacial material-locking lattices in improving the bonding strength between dissimilar materials, which include conventional truss lattices and triply periodic minimal surface (TPMS) lattices. The bonding strength achieved by these lattices is compared to existing 2D interface designs. Finite Element Analysis (FEA) was performed to facilitate the understanding of the underlying mechanism, as well as to reveal the influences of several important geometric variables, such as orientation of truss members and the lattice porosity. Overall, this research contributes to the advancement of bonding techniques for dissimilar materials and offers practical insights for enhancing the mechanical performance of products fabricated by contemporary advanced manufacturing techniques.