Mechanical behavior of aluminum foam/polyurethane interpenetrating phase composites under monotonic and cyclic compression

The mechanical behavior of aluminum foam (AF)/polyurethane (PU) interpenetrating phase composites (AF/PU composites) is investigated using a series of monotonic and cyclic compression tests. Three groups of AF/PU composites are prepared with different volume fractions of aluminum. The monotonic test results indicate that the compression strength of AF/PU composites increases with the increasing volume fraction of aluminum, while the failure mode of AF/PU composites is irregular due to the introduction of PU. The cyclic test results reveal that the recoverable deformation of AF/PU composites derives from the elastic deformation of AF skeleton and the hyper-elastic deformation of PU. Based on the detailed analysis of these test results, the monotonic and cyclic stress-strain models for AF/PU composites are developed, respectively. The efficiency of these proposed models is illustrated by comparisons with the corresponding monotonic and cyclic test results.