Indentation of expanded polystyrene foams with a ball

In this paper, a comprehensive study on the static and dynamic indentation of expanded polystyrene (EPS) foam blocks with a ball is carried out. An experimental study is carried out first to investigate the force response of EPS foams indented by a ball. The loading and unloading property and the strain rate effect of the EPS foams are also investigated. Numerical analyses are then performed by nonlinear finite element code LS-DYNA to simulate the tests. A theoretical model is proposed to predict the static and dynamic indentation responses of the EPS foams with a ball. Comparisons show that the theoretical predictions by the present model compare well with the experimental and numerical results.