Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/1959.3/215480

Title

Investigation of cell shape effect on the mechanical behaviour of open-cell metal foams

Author(s)

An, Yang;  Wen, Cui'e;  Hodgson, Peter D.;  Yang, Chunhui

Abstract

The mechanical behaviours of metal foams greatly depend on their cell topology, including cell shape, cell size etc. as well as relative density and material properties of the cell wall. However, the cell shape effect on the mechanical behaviours of such materials appears to be ignored in previous research. In this paper, both analytic and finite element models are developed and employed to investigate the effect of cell shape on the mechanical behaviour of open-cell magnesium alloy (AZ91) foams under compression, including deformation modes and failure modes. For numerical modelling, both two-dimensional (2-D) and three-dimensional (3-D) finite element models are developed to predict the compressive behaviours of typical open-cell metal foams and capture the deformation modes and failure mechanisms. Two typical cell shapes i.e. cubic and diamond are taken into consideration. To validate these models, the analytic and numerical results are compared to the experimental data. Both the numerical and experimental data indicate that the cell shape significantly affects the compression behaviour of open-cell metal foams. In general, numerical results from the three-dimensional solid-element model show better agreement with the experimental results than those from other finite element models.

Publication type

Journal article

Research centre

Swinburne University of Technology. Faculty of Engineering and Industrial Sciences

Source

Computational Materials Science, Vol. 55 (Apr 2012), pp. 1-9

Publication year

2012

FOR Code(s)

0204 Condensed Matter Physics;  0912 Materials Engineering

Keyword(s)

Cell shape effect;  Deformation mode;  Effective Young's modulus;  Failure mechanism;  Finite element modelling;  Open-cell metal foams

Publisher

Elsevier

ISSN

0927-0256

Publisher URL

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.commatsci.2011.11.030

Copyright

Copyright © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Peer reviewed