Compressive Properties and Energy Absorption of Aluminum Foams with a Wide Range of Relative Densities
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Compressive Properties and Energy Absorption of Aluminum Foams with a Wide Range of Relative Densities Ying Cheng, Yanxiang Li, Xiang Chen, Xu Zhou, and Ningzhen Wang (Submitted February 6, 2018; in revised form June 15, 2018) Quasi-static uniaxial compressive experiments were conducted on aluminum foams with a wide range of relative densities (0.134-0.472). The compressive properties and energy absorption capacity were systematically characterized and compared in a more suitable way. The compressive stress instead of compressive strain achieved during energy absorption process was taken into consideration. The results show that aluminum foam is not a kind of energy absorption materials with a stationary plateau region at the plastic deformation stage. There exists a strain hardening phenomenon which makes the stress–strain curve incline at this stage. For every aluminum foam with certain relative density, there exists an optimal stress. Under its optimal stress condition, the foam can absorb the maximum energy compared to foams with whatever different relative densities. The optimal stress and corresponding maximum energy absorption capacity increase with the increase in the foamÕs relative density. Keywords
aluminum foam, compressive properties, failure analysis, energy absorption, relative density
1. Introduction Closed-cell aluminum foams are a class of lightweight materials with an excellent combination of mechanical, acoustic, electrical and thermal properties (Ref 1-4). One important potential application is to use them as energy absorption materials in automotive and aerospace industry, where weight reduction and impact protect are needed. During compression, aluminum foams can undergo large plastic deformation at a nearly constant stress, which is the so-called plateau region (Ref 1). Thus, considerable amount of energy can be absorbed while keeping the stress below some critical level, which resulting in a non-dangerous deceleration on the protected object. The compressive properties of aluminum foams have been investigated by many researchers. Gibson and Ashby systematically studied the correlation between structure and properties of cellular solid (Ref 5). Their results show that the foamÕs properties are mainly determined by two factors: one is the foamÕs relative density (the ratio of the foamÕs density to the matrix materialÕs density); the other is the matrix materialsÕ properties. Daniel et al. (Ref 6) proposed a multilinear regression model to predict aluminum foamÕs mechanical properties and energy absorption capacity. They found that the cell edge effects are more significant compared to the cell Ying Cheng, Xu Zhou, and Ningzhen Wang, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, PeopleÕs Republic of China; and Yanxiang Li and Xiang Chen, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, PeopleÕs Republic of China; and Key Laboratory for Advanced Materials Processing Technology, MOE, Beijin
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