Measurement of Material Properties for Metal Foam Cored Polymer Composite Sandwich Construction

Abstract

Material properties are required for the numerical simulation of the impact progressive collapse of metal foam cored polymer composite sandwich beams, using LS-DYNA. As far as the metal foam, Alporas, is concerned, multi-axial tension and compression data is required. This includes large scale crush and tensile rupture. An Arcan test fixture was developed, in which a sample of foam can be subject to tensile and shear deformation simultaneously. The data was also used to calibrate the crushable foam material model in LS-DYNA. For the skin, tensile and compression data was generated for a cross ply glass fibre thermoplastic laminate. The data was then used to calibrate the composite damage material model in LS-DYNA. Inclusion of calibrated material models into the simulation of the progressive collapse of metal foam cored composite sandwich beams will be briefly discussed.