Flaw Nucleation In A Brittle Open-Cell Kelvin Foam

Abstract

Open-cell Kelvin foam is considered as a spatial lattice consisting of brittle elastic struts rigidly connected to each other at the nodal points. The lattice is subjected to remote uniaxial tensile loading, an initial imperfection is introduced and sequential break of the struts is observed. Different loading directions and material densities are examined and it is found that the broken struts form a plane flaw, which may be either a bridged or usual crack. The possible crack propagation planes to be used in the fracture toughness analysis are determined.

Fracture toughness of rigid polymeric foams: A review

“…Such properties are often difficult to measure experimentally, but they are very important in design of the lightweight composite structures containing foam cores. Micromechanical analysis also allows to describe the structural damage and failure of cellular materials 13–21 . Gibson and Ashby, 2 Mills 3 and Fleck et al 22 presented extensive studies of micromechanical models for cellular materials.…”