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CHAPTER 6<br />

EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS<br />

6.1. Uniaxial Compression Behavior of Alulight Closed-Cell Al Foam<br />

Materials<br />

Engineering compression stress-strain curves of Alulight closed-cell Al foams of<br />

varying relative densities are shown in Figure 6.1(a). As is seen in Figure 6.1(a), the<br />

compression stress is function of relative density: increasing foam relative density<br />

increases foam stresses. The compression curves in the same figure essentially show the<br />

characteristics of the foam/cellular metal compression deformation behavior. In<br />

compression testing, the initial elastic region is followed by a plateau region in which<br />

the stress values slightly increase with increasing strain and a densification region after<br />

which the stress values increase sharply. The plateau stress values of the foams are<br />

determined by drawing a straight line to the stress values until about 0.1 strain. The<br />

intercept of the fitted-line on the stress axis is taken as the plateau stress. Figure 6.1(b)<br />

shows the variation of plateau stress with foam relative density. In this graph, each<br />

datum point represents the average plateau stress values of three repetitive compression<br />

tests on the foams of the same relative densities. The plateau stress in Figure 6.1(a) is<br />

further fitted with the power law strengthening equation.<br />

The foam strength model developed by Desphande and Fleck (Deshpande and<br />

Fleck 2000b, Reyes, et al. 2003) is used to determine the stress-strain behavior of the<br />

investigated Alulight Al foam. Desphande and Fleck foam model is given by the<br />

following equation,<br />

100

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