Mechanical properties of open-cell metal foams under low-velocity impact loading

Abstract

Dynamic response of open-cell metal foam under low-velocity impact loading is important in applications involving impact resistance and energy absorption, etc. Assuming that metal foam is a conceptually continuous material, the macroscopic mechanical behaviors, both static and dynamic, must be studied. Within the dynamic mechanical properties of metal foam, impact response becomes the renewed interest to understand the characteristics of impact deformation. The present work aims to experimentally and numerically analyze the low-velocity impact response of open-cell metal foam. A series of low-velocity drop impact tests are realized on the open-cell metal foam samples with different relative densities and at different impact velocity. Afterwards, a well compiled program in Python controls the whole multiple drop impact process on each sample of metal foam. Corresponding numerical modeling and the simulation for single impact analysis are continuously carried out with the finite element (FE) program ABAQUS/...