PM-08A Study of Micro-structure and Mechanical Properties of the Porous Polymer using FIB/SEM Tomography and the Finite Element Method

Abstract

Focused ion beam / scanning electron microscope (FIB/SEM) technique is a powerful approach for three-dimensional (3D) structural analysis at the submicron scale. However there are only a limited number of studies on the application of FIB/SEM tomography to quantify microstructural characteristics of porous polymer materials. In order to gain insight into the relationship between the mechanical properties and the features of 3D interconnected porous micro-structure, the 3D micro-structure of porous polymer was reconstructed based on the as-recorded stacks of FIB/SEM images, and then the mechanical properties were calculated by finite element modelling (FEM) using the reconstructed 3D model. A series of the high resolution, high contrast In-Lens-SEM images (Fig. 1 (a)) was generated by FIB/SEM instrument (Helios dual-beam, FEI). Fig. 1 (b) shows the 3D volume of a part of the porous polymer reconstructed based on the stacks of FIB/SEM images, the internal shape and their connectivity of pores in the model could be visualized very distinctly. Moreover, the mechanical properties from the numerical simulation based on the reconstructed 3D model show a good agreement with those observed by experiments. As a result, a combined FIB/SEM tomography and FEM study could help to in-depth understand microstructural features of porous polymer by taking into account mechanical performance.