As part of an overall research of the dynamic behavior of aluminum foams we conducted a research that was concentrated on the mechanism of the foam collapse. Understanding this mechanism can contribute to the better design of protecting layers and affect the manufacturing procedure to enhance the performance of the foam as a protective layer. Previous research [1] focused on the strain rate dependence of the mechanical behavior of the foams, and on other phenomena that were observed during the experimental research. In that study we found that the mechanical behavior of the foams has some dependents on the strain rate. Therefore, in the continuation research we were focused on the effect of the gasses phase on the dynamic behavior of the foam. Three different compressing techniques were used; Instron compressing machine, impact pendulum and shock tube system. Those three techniques span the compression strain rate from 0.01 s-1 to 500 s-1. It was found that while increasing the strain rate the effect of the gas phase become dominant. In order to test this phenomena special shock tube experiment was conducted to mimic the gas phase behavior. By subtracting the gas effect from the overall foam behavior we found that there is no significant strain rate dependence to the metallic phase while there is some strain rate hardening contribution from the gas phase. That is due to relies rate of the gas trapped in the purse.
[1] Sadot O., Anteby I., Harush. CI, Levintant O., Nizri E., Ostraich B., Schenker A., Gal E., Kivity Y. & Ben-Dor G., “Experimental investigation of dynamic properties of Aluminum foams”. Journal of Structural Engineering, 131(8), 1226, 2005.
