Impact fracture behavior at the material of aluminum foam

In this work, impact tests with drop weights are performed on closed-cell aluminum foam and the experimental results are compared with the simulation results. The finite element software, ABAQUS is used for the impact analysis. For the tests, low velocity impact test equipment from Dynatup conforming to ASTM D 3763 is used. The low velocity impact damage behavior of aluminum foam is studied by comparing the numerical analysis and experimental result data. The numerically estimated damages, impact load history, and dissipated energy for penetration are compared with results of the experiments. Dissipated energy results show good agreement between experiment and simulation with errors of less than 6.7%. The characterization of the aluminum foam on the basis of impact velocity and energy absorption is also investigated. The important factor affecting material penetration for aluminum foam is the impacting velocity as well as the dissipated energy of a material. A good method for examining minimum energy absorption ability is the impact test with lower mass and higher velocity, to avoid bending deformation mode. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.