Mechanical characterization of axially compressed metallic foams containing periodic rectangular holes with FEM analysis and analytical considerations

Abstract

This work presents an approach to evaluate axially compressed metallic foams with the presence of holes on the structure further than foam voids. Adding holes, the total material weight is decreased but the stiffness is not linearly reduced. The stress–strain characterization is investigated and presented considering the number, size, and thickness of rectangular holes. The characterization uses representative volume elements to decompose the foam into fundamental portions. Symmetries, boundary conditions and homogenization principles are combined in a formulation in terms of parameters describing the holes, resulting in a parametric characterization. Examples are presented where the influence of holes is analyzed.

Keywords:

• Axial compression
• buckling
• cellular metals
• finite element method
• metallic foams
• perforated materials

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank to Propesq–UFRGS, FAPERGS, CAPES and CNPq (Brazilian Research Committees) for their financial support.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.