Low-velocity impact behaviour of open-cell foams

Metal foams are cellular solids that show some unique properties which cannot be found in other natural or human-made materials. While the impact characteristics of closed-cell foams under static and impact loadings appear to be well-studied in the literature, the impact behaviour of open-cell foams is not yet well-understood. In this study, open-cell foams with two different densities are impacted by drop weights with different kinetic energies. The effects of foam density, impactor initial height, and impactor weight on the recorded stress-time, stress-strain, and energy-strain curves are investigated. While the stress-strain curve of closed-cell foams under impact loading usually consists of a single bell, the results of the current study showed that both the stress-time and stress-strain curves of most the samples consist of two consecutive bells. By increasing weight of the impacting weight, the number of bells increases which helps in increasing the impact period and keeping the maximum generated stress low. Compared to closed-cell foams, the open-cell foams can therefore better absorb the energy, as long as the impact energy is relatively small. The relatively low stiffness as well as the presence of large hollow space inside the open-cell foams also makes them favorable for being used as biomedical scaffolds.