Improving the mechanical performance of foam material based on bioinspiration

Abstract

Inspired from foam-like biological construction, artificial foam, which is typically an ultralight and multifunctional material, has been developed for engineering applications. However, the presence of constructed porous materials leads to an extremely weakened load-bearing capacity. Therefore, we propose encasing the outside of bare foam with high-strength fabric to enhance the foam’s mechanical properties. A series of three-point bending tests are conducted to examine the enhancement in bending resistance generated by a high-strength composite fabric. A comparison between bare and encased foams shows that encasing bare foam with high-strength fabric significantly increases the foam’s load-bearing capacity, especially in terms of its bending resistance while retaining its intrinsic lightweight advantages.