Density, Microstructure, and Strain‑Rate Effects on the Compressive Response of Polyurethane Foams

• Author(s) / Creator(s)

  • Bhagavathula, Kapil Bharadwaj
  • Meredith, Christopher S.
  • Ouellet, Simon
  • Satapathy, Sikhanda S.
  • Romanyk, Dan L.
  • Hogan, James D.

• Background A better understanding of the efect of density, microstructure, and strain rate on the mechanical response of polymeric foam materials is needed to improve their performance.

  Objective The objective of this paper is to study the combined infuence of density, microstructure, and strain-rate on the compressive stress-strain response of polymeric foams.

  Methods Microstructural morphological parameters (e.g., pores sizes and wall thicknesses) have been quantifed using Micro X-ray tomography and MATLAB-based techniques. Polymeric foam samples were examined under uniaxial compression loading at quasistatic (0.001 to 0.1s−1), intermediate (1 to 250s−1), and dynamic strain rates (3200 to 5700s−1
  ). All experiments were coupled with high speed cameras to measure strain using 2D digital image correlation, and to visualize deformation.

  Results The variation of the mechanical properties across alldensities (e.g., elastic modulus and collapse stress) are found to behave in a powerlawfashion with respect to strain rate. A comprehensive data set across a varied rangeof densities and strain rates, especially intermediate strain rates, is lacking in previous research, and generalized phenomenological relationships developed in this paper topredict combined infuences of density, microstructure, and strain-rate over variedrange of materials are important contributions of this work.

  Conclusions The results showed that the power-law relationships act as a good predictor for the prediction of mechanical properties and elastic response, and as an indicator for damage mechanisms in these polymeric foams.

• Date created

  2021-11-09

• Subjects / Keywords

  • Computed tomography
  • Polymeric foam
  • Microstructure
  • Compression
  • Strain rate

• Type of Item

  Article (Draft / Submitted)

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/r3-n3xp-e126

• License

  © Crown 2021 This version of the article has been accepted for publication, after peer review (when applicable) and is subject to Springer Nature’s AM terms of use, but is not the Version of Record and does not reflect post-acceptance improvements, or any corrections. The Version of Record is available online at: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11340-021-00772-z