Numerical and experimental study of mechanical response of aluminum foams under compressive loading using CT data

Metal foams are relatively novel materials that due to excellent mechanical, thermal, and insulation properties have found wide usage in different engineering applications such as energy absorbers, bone substitute implants, sandwich structure cores, etc. In common numerical studies, the mechanical properties of foams are usually introduced to FE models by considering homogenized uniform properties in different parts of a foamy structure. However, in highly irregular foams, due to complex micro-geometry, considering a uniform mechanical property for all portions of the foam leads to inaccurate results. Modeling the micro-architecture of foams enables better following of the mechanisms acting in micro-scale which would lead to more accurate numerical predictions. In this study, static mechanical behavior of several closed-cell foam samples has been simulated and validated against experimental results. The samples were first imaged using a multi-slice CT-Scan device. Subsequently, experimental compression tests were carried out on the samples using a uniaxial compression testing machine. The CT data were then used for creating micro-scale 3D models of the samples. According to the darkness or brightness of the CT images, different densities were assigned to different parts of the micro-scale FE models of the foam samples. Depending on density of the material at a point, the elastic modulus was considered for it. Three different formulas were considered in different simulations for relating the local elastic modulus of the foam material to density of the foam material at that point. ANSYS implicit solver was used for the simulations. Finally, the results of the FE models based on the three formulas were compared to each other and to the experimental results to show the best formula for modeling the closed-cell foams.