Abstract:
This study aims to achieve high?quality fabrication of thin?walled corrugated honeycomb structures exhibiting simultaneous multi?directional load?bearing and energy?absorption capabilities via Selective Laser Melting (SLM). Initially, 316L stainless steel was used as the base material to perform single?track melt?pool simulations tailored for corrugated honeycomb geometries. These simulations were validated against single?track SLM experiments, thereby identifying the threshold ranges of laser power and scan speed suitable for producing 0.1?mm?thick honeycomb walls. Subsequently, forming trials investigate on 316L stainless?steel corrugated honeycomb cells to systematically investigate the influence of laser energy input on cell fabrication quality. Based on these findings, the applicable parameter windows for laser scanning power and scan speed were optimized. Simulations of the honeycomb cell further refined this optimization: using average cell deformation as the evaluation metric, the optimal process parameter combination for thin?walled corrugated honeycomb fabrication was determined. Finally, a corrugated honeycomb specimen with an average wall thickness of 0.104?mm was fabricated under the optimized SLM conditions and subjected to quasi?static compression testing. Experimental results demonstrate that, compared with conventional regular hexagonal honeycombs, the corrugated configuration offers superior multi?directional load?bearing performance and energy?absorption capacity. This work provides a basis for process-parameter optimization and high‐quality fabrication of thin-walled, complex?surface honeycomb structures via SLM.