Pantographic structures presenting statistically distributed defects: Numerical investigations of the effects on deformation fields

In 3D printing process, when small length scales are attained, it is more frequent the onset of imperfections. In the present paper it is studied how the performances of pantographic structures (as defined and introduced in dell'Isola et al. (2005) [1]) are affected by statistically distributed defects. The relevance of the treated problem is more cogent as the technological tools now available allow for the construction of more and more miniaturised fabrics constituted by beam lattices. Our simulations show that in presence of defects following a (truncated) Gaussian distribution the performances of planar pantographic sheets remain qualitatively the same, even if some relevant negative quantitative effects may occur.