Experimental investigations and numerical simulations of notch effect in cellular plastic materials

Abstract

Cellular plastics are light weight structures with many applications in civil, aeronautical, automotive and mechanical engineering. Properties of cellular materials depend on the properties of the solid material, on the shape and dimensions of the cellular structure and on the relative density of the cellular material. Most of cellular plastic materials are crushing in compression and have a brittle behavior in tension. The effect of notches represents an important issue in such materials, taking into account that for packing applications for example, notches/holes should be introduced in the cellular material. This paper investigates the effect of notches in compression for three different densities 100, 145 and 300 kg/m3 polyurethane (PUR) foams. Experimental investigations were performed on rectangular blocks of 100×100×25 mm with 16, 28 and 40 mm central holes. The mechanism of damage was monitored with an IR camera FLIR A40M. Purpose of the numerical simulations was to calibrate a material model, based on compression test for un-notched specimens using the CRUSHABLE FOAM models implemented in ABAQUS SIMULIA. Then the material models were used to simulate the experimental tests on notched blocks. Good agreement was obtained for the load - displacement curves obtained experimentally and from simulation. Also the plastic deformation patterns observed experimentally by IR thermograpghy were obtained numerically using the CRUSHABLE FOAM material model.