Explosion Resistance of Three-Dimensional Mesoscopic Model of Complex Closed-Cell Aluminum Foam Sandwich Structure Based on Random Generation Algorithm

Abstract

According to the randomness of the spatial distribution and shape of the internal cells of closed-cell foam aluminum and based on the Voronoi algorithm, we use ABAQUS to model the random polyhedrons of pore cells firstly. Then, the algorithm of generating aluminum foam with random pore size and random wall thickness is written by Python and Fortran, and the mesh model of random polyhedral particles and random wall thickness was established by the algorithm read in by TrueGrid software. Finally, the mesh model is impo rted into the LS-DYNA software to remove the random polyhedron part of the pore cell. Compared with the results of scanning electron microscopy and antiknock test, the morphology and properties of the model are close to those of the real aluminum foam material, and the coincidence degree is more than 91.4%. By means of numerical simulation, the mechanism of the wall deformation, destruction of closed-cell aluminum foams, and the rapid attenuation of explosion stress wave after the interference of reflection and transmission of bubbles were studied and revealed. It is found that aluminum foam deformation can be divided into four areas: collapse area, fracture area, plastic deformation area, and elastic deformation region. Therefore, the explosion resistance is directly related to the cell wall thickness and bubble size, and there is an optimal porosity rule for aluminum foam antiknock performance.

Dynamic response and energy absorption of aluminum foam sandwich under low-velocity impact

“…It is widely used in finite element simulation of mechanical properties of foam materials. 17 Zhuang and Wang 18 proposed a new method to build the Voronoi model, which can generate solid models with random wall thickness. Zhang et al 19 established a 3D Voronoi model of aluminum foam and carried out a numerical simulation of hyperboloid plastic forming.…”

Dynamic Response of Sandwich Tubes with Continuously Density-Graded Aluminum Foam Cores under Internal Explosion Load

“…Aluminum foam material has a long and almost constant plateau stress during compression. It can absorb a large amount of energy before being crushed to a stable stage or before failure, with excellent energy absorption and impact resistance, and has been widely used in explosion-proof and impact protection fields [ 1 , 2 , 3 ]. Compared with the single-foam material, the foam sandwich structure can show better anti-explosion performance under the explosion load [ 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 ].…”

“…Most commonly used finite-element models of foam materials, usually based on idealized solid element modeling, cannot describe the dynamic changes in the microstructure of porous materials [ 1 , 24 ]. Liang et al [ 25 , 26 ] studied the dynamic response of and energy absorption by double-layer aluminum foam sandwich panels under explosion loads through experiments and 2D-Voronoi numerical simulations.…”

Three dimensional modelling of aluminum foam through computed tomography scan technique

“…This technique can be used to reconstruct the micro-structures of the metallic foams. Through this technique, the object is scanned in the form of 2D images (Wang et al , 2020). Thus foam microstructure can be obtained in the same way by combining the captured 2D images.…”