Abstract
Rigid low-density plastic foams subjected to mechanical loads typically exhibit a nonlinear deformation stage preceding failure. At moderate strains, when the geometrical nonlinearity is negligible, such foam response is predominantly caused by the nonlinearity of deformation of their principal structural elements—foam struts. Orientational averaging of stresses in foam struts enables estimation of the stresses taken up by foams at a given applied strain. Based on a structural model of highly porous anisotropic cellular plastics filled with clay nanoplatelets and the orientational averaging, a method for calculating their nonlinear deformation is derived in terms of structural parameters of the porous material, the mechanical properties of the monolithic polymer, and filler particles and their spatial orientation. The method is applied to predicting the tensile stress-strain diagrams of organoclay-filled low-density rigid polyurethane foams, and reasonable agreement with experimental data is demonstrated.
Highlights
The aim of this research was to develop a structural model for calculating the nonlinear deformation of highly porous cellular plastics with a porosity Π (0 < Π < 1) exceeding 90%
When anisometric filler particles are used in production of low-density composite foams, they tend to align with the principal flow direction of the liquid chemical formulation during foaming as well as with the stretch directions of cell walls and struts, as demonstrated for polymer foams with rod- [1,2,3,4,5,6] and plate-like [7,8,9] mico- and nanofillers
The aim of the present study is to create a mathematical model for describing the nonlinear deformation of highly porous cellular plastics filled with clay nanoplatelets, taking into account the influence of the spatial alignment of filler particles in foam struts
Summary
The aim of this research was to develop a structural model for calculating the nonlinear deformation of highly porous cellular plastics with a porosity Π (0 < Π < 1) exceeding 90%. Such cellular plastics (i.e., plastic foams) are used in various fields of engineering, e.g., as damping and heat- and sound-insulating materials. An analytical model was developed in [4] to describe the instantaneous location and angle of rod-like conductive fillers as affected by cell growth during the foaming of conductive polypropylene composites. The reorientation of nanoclay particles during the foaming process has been considered, and its effect on the stiffness of the cell walls was modeled in [9]
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