Resistance of Thin Al Foam Panels to Deep Indentation

In recent years there has been a considerable amount of research into the deformation behaviour of metallic foams. The majority of this research has only addressed size-independent bulk material properties, obtained through uniaxial compression and indentation tests of thick blocks. There is little information in the literature on the indentation response of thin panels, which has motivated the current study. Thin panels of ALPORAS closed-cell foam of ~ 0.25 g/cm3 density were tested in uniaxial compression, and were indented with long flat-plate punches and long cylindrical punches. Cross-sectioning of the samples following interrupted testing revealed the plastic strain evolution process. The deformation was attributed to the progressive crushing of the cell bands, and the combined action of shearing and tearing resistance. Based on energy formalism, a model was developed to estimate the crushing force. By fitting the experimental loaddisplacement curves, the foam ligament tearing energy was deduced for all types of indentation. The absorbed energy was also calculated for the uniaxial compression and indentation experiments.