Measurement of the Young’s modulus and shear modulus of extruded polystyrene foam by the longitudinal and flexural vibration methods

Abstract

The Young’s modulus and shear modulus of extruded polystyrene foam were obtained by measurements using the longitudinal and flexural vibration methods on specimens with various lengths and performing a subsequent numerical analysis on the test data. In addition to the vibration tests, ISO 844 compression and ASTM C273/C273M-11 shear tests were conducted, and the results were compared with those obtained from the vibration tests. The Young’s modulus values could be measured accurately by the longitudinal and flexural vibration tests while reducing the effects of the specimen configuration. In contrast, the shear modulus value was often dependent on the specimen configuration. The Young’s modulus and shear modulus values obtained from the vibration tests were often higher than those obtained from the standardised tests because the bending of cell wall is not induced in the vibration test. Although a provisional method for reducing the influence of the specimen configuration was proposed based on the numerical results, further research is required to measure the elastic modulus of extruded polystyrene foam accurately.