Low-kinetic energy impact response of auxetic and conventional open-cell polyurethane foams

This paper reports quasi-static and low-kinetic energy impact testing of auxetic and conventional open-cell polyurethane foams. The auxetic foams were fabricated using the established thermo-mechanical process originally developed by Lakes. Converted foams were subject to compression along each dimension to 85% and 70% of the unconverted dimension during the conversion process, corresponding to linear compression ratios of 0.85 and 0.7, respectively. The 0.7 linear compression ratio foams were confirmed to have a re-entrant foam cell structure and to be auxetic. Impact tests were performed for kinetic energies up to 4 J using an instrumented drop rig and high speed video. A flat dropper was employed on isolated foams, and a hemisperical shaped dropper on foams covered with a rigid polypropylene outer shell layer. The flat dropper tests provide data on the rate-dependency of the Poisson’s ratio in these foam test specimens. The foam Poisson’s ratios were found to be unaffected by the strain rate for the impact energies considered here. Acceleration-time data are reported along with deformation images from the video footage. The auxetic samples displayed a 6 times reduction in peak acceleration, showing potential in impact protector devices such as shin or thigh protectors in sports equipment applications. Keywords : auxetic, foam, impact, negative Poisson’s rati