Energy Dissipation Characteristics in Pre-strained Silicone Foam Transitioning to Silicone Rubber

Silicone foam is used as a shock mitigation material in a variety of systems to protect internal components from being damaged during external shock or impact loading. Characterizing the shock mitigation response of silicone foam under a variety of scenarios is a critical step in designing and/or evaluating new shock mitigation systems. In this study, a Kolsky bar with pre-compression capability was used with a passive radial confinement tube to subject the sample to various levels of pre-strain followed by impact loading. The effects of both pre-strain and impact velocity on impact energy dissipation behavior were investigated for silicone foam. The energy dissipation response of silicone foam is compared to a silicone rubber manufactured using the same processing methods to understand the energy dissipation characteristics of silicone foams transitioning to a silicone rubber. The final density of the foam or rubber plays a key role in both the total energy dissipation ratio in the time domain and the energy dissipation ratio as a function of frequency in the frequency domain.