Mechanical Properties Simulation Of Aluminum Foam And Its Sandwich Structure

Because of the foam's fine performance,as light-weight, high strength and stiffness, excellent energy absorption, sound insulation, thermal insulation and damping, made it had a wide range of applications in various fields. As a protection device of energy-absorbing and buffer in engineering application, foam materials must bear certain impact load. Therefore, the research on compression properties and deformation mechanism of foam has become a great-concern issue. Because of the special pore structure of foam material made it have lower yield strength than the dense metal, and easier failure in case of compression. In order to use foam better, People handle foam with sandwich processing. Based on combining of numerical simulation and theoretical analysis, this paper studied the relation between aperture, porosity and its sandwich compressive properties, then made a detailed analysis of energy absorption characteristics. Mainly including:1. Establishing a simple cubic structure of open-cell aluminum foam model and using finite element software ANSYS/LS-DYNA simulates compressive property of open-cell aluminum foam with different porosity and aperture. Under the quasi-static compression, explore the influence that different porosity and aperture on compressive property and energy absorption of open-cell aluminum foam. The study finds that: with the increase of porosity and aperture, the yield strength of open-cell aluminum foam decrease6%~18% and energy absorptioncan reduce 12%; when deformation is 50%, aluminum foam achieve best energy absorption states; its ideal energy absorption efficiency up to 0.65, has good energy absorption. Then, compared simulated and experimental values found that its errors in the range of 4%-12%.2. Establishing tetrakaidecahedron closed-cell aluminum foams makes its compression performance simulation under different porosity and aperture. Find that with the increase of the porosity, the yield strength of closed-cell aluminum foam decreased and energy absorption can reduce 26%; aperture has little effect on them. When the strain of closed-cell aluminum foam is 75%,itsenergy absorption efficiency reaches peak, its platform span longer than open-cell aluminum foam, the ideal energy absorption efficiency up to 0.75, slightly higher than the open-cell aluminum foam. By comparing to simulated and experimental values, error in the range of 4%-10%, tetrakaidecahedron closer to the real structure of aluminum foam, test feasibility.3. Simulate compression properties of aluminum foam sandwich with different porosity and aperture using finite element simulation software ANSYS/LS-DYNA,and analysis compared the energy absorbing.Inquiry the effect of porosity on compressive properties of aluminum foam sandwich structure under quasi-static and dynamic compression. Found that with porosity of aluminum foam sandwich increases, its yield strength decreases; but porosity has little effect on the contingency value of aluminum foam achieved the best energy absorption efficiency. With aperture decreases, yield strength of aluminum foam sandwich increased under quasi-static loading; absorbing energy increased with the increasing strain. Aperture of aluminum foam sandwich has little effect on efficiency and ideality. Different panel materials of aluminum foam sandwich also have an influence on the compression curve. Energy absorption of aluminum foam sandwich with top aluminum panel is slightly higher than top panel is nickelclad. The different materials of low panels has little effect on the energy absorbing of foam sandwich. While yield stress of sandwich structures is 1.3 times the simple aluminum foam, it absorbs more energy than the aluminum foam 20%, which certifiedby making aluminum foam sandwich, the compressive and energy absorption performance have improved.