The effect of polydispersity on the crushing of open-cell random foams (INVITED)

Abstract eng:
Open-cell foams, both natural and synthetic, made from most categories of base materials (e.g., metals, polymers, ceramics) exhibit superior energy absorption characteristics under both low and high velocity impact. In our work micromechanically accurate models generated using the Surface Evolver software are used to study how the characteristics of the cellular microstructure affect the crushing response of open- cell foams under quasi-static and impact loadings. Recent results demonstrated that both the collapse stress and the strain-energy absorbed scale with the relative density of the foam. The present work examines the effect of cell-size variations (polydispersity) on the quasi-static and dynamic crushing responses. The results indicate that polydispersity reduces the initial strength of foam but has less influence of the overall energy absorption capacity.

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