Compression of structural foam materials – Experimental and numerical assessment of test procedure and specimen size effects

This study was initiated based on the observation that standardized test methods for flatwise compression of foam materials, give significantly different test results for the measured moduli, and that these standards to date lack adequate instructions on how the strain should be measured and what specimen size should be used. A brief review of previous work shows that existing test methodologies provide significantly different results for the compressive moduli of foams depending on how the strains are measured. A thorough experimental study of the out-of-plane compressive properties is conducted on three different closed-cell foam materials, where strains measured with two different extensometer placements, and with digital image correlation, come out significantly differently. A parametric study is also performed showing that the results vary considerably with in-plane specimen dimensions, indicating effects of finite size and localized strain at edges. Both stochastic amorphous and homogenized finite element models of foam back the experimental observations by illustrating the effects of finite size and various boundary conditions on the measured properties.