| Failure of metal foams caused by compression is very common in practice, such as light-weight structural sandwich panels, packing materials and energy absorbing devices. In this paper, the uniaxial compression and indentation response of the closed-cell aluminum foams were investigated experimentally under quasi-static loading conditions. The indentation deformation was found to be almost totally restricted to a spherical cap-shape compacted zone under the indenter. The indentation strength of the closed-cell Al foam is larger than the uniaxial compressive strength because of the work done in tearing cell walls around the perimeter of the indenter and because of friction. The closed-cell Al foam exhibits an elastic-plastic type behavior under transverse uniaxial compressive loads. A long flat stress-strain curve shows that metal foam is a good energy absorption material. |
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