Dynamic compression of lightweight interpenetrating phase composite (IPC) foams: Measurements and modeling

Abstract

In recent years, there has been an increased demand for engineered materials that are lightweight, stiff and tough. Interpenetrating Phase Composites (IPC), a family of bio-inspired materials, made of two or more phases where each phase forms a continuous 3-D network throughout the volume of the material could address some of these conflicting requirements. The specific IPC used in this work is formed by infusing uncured polymer syntactic foam which is prepared by dispersing hollow microballoons in epoxy into open-cell aluminum foam, and letting the syntactic foam to cure within the 3D metallic scaffold. The resultant is a composite (see, Fig. 1) of the syntactic foam and the aluminum foam which in their stand alone state are open cell foams themselves. In this work, the dynamic compressive responses of the syntactic foam and the hybrid syntactic foam-aluminum foam IPC are examined. The volume fraction of the hollow microballoons is varied and its effect on the dynamic compressive properties is studied experimentally.