High temperature compressive deformation behaviour of aluminum syntactic foam

The high temperature compressive deformation behaviour of cenosphere filled aluminum syntactic foam has been studied at temperature between 100 degrees C and 200 degrees C and strain rate ranging from 10(-3)/s to 1/s. The plateau stress and densification strain are computed from stress-strain curve at various temperatures and strain rates. The plateau stress decreases with temperature irrespective of strain rate. Interestingly, plateau stress initially decreases with increase in strain rate and reaches to a minimum, and above a certain strain rate it starts increasing with strain rate irrespective of temperature. The densification strain remains invariant with strain rate but increases marginally with temperature. The strain rate sensitivity 'm' is found to be negative at a strain rate below the critical value and positive beyond the critical strain rate. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.