Simulation of soft open foam  

Progress

Dear Simulaters

Thank you very much for the answers.

I tried to use the informations, here is what i got:

[B]Answer Bergstrm:[/B]

[I]If you measured the true stress/strain then import it as such, if you measured the eng stress/strain then specify that when importing. MCalibration does not assume or impose any Poissons ratio.[/I]

[I]See Fig.1[/I]

The first picture shows five times the same datafile:

Blue - imported as TRUE Strain and Stress, looks just like the Force - Displacement curves of my measurment did.

Red - imported as ENGINEERING Strain and Stress, as the stress decreases dramitically it seems like the cross sectional area must have changed. As the poissons ratio is very small (if not zero) the cross sectional area did not change and at least the stress values should remain the same ... shouldnt they? What is my mistake here? Also strain values greater then 1 are unconventional to me but might be ok.

Green (and hiding a red curve) - as ENGINEERING Stress and Strain but not as uniaxial but as confined compression to simulate the low Poissons Ratio ... well, doesnt seem suitable.

As the Poissons Ratios are very small for this materials (see below) i do not understand what makes the changes between True and Engineering. Doesnt True just consider the true cross sectional area of the deformed specimen? Which should nearly be constant at small Poissons ratios?

For the later tests i used the data imported as True becuase the curve fits are much better...(see below) i hope it is physically plausible!

[B]Answer Bergstrm:[/B]

[I]When working with foams I recommend either measuring the Poissons ratio, and then adding a Poissons Ratio load case. OR, measure the transverse strain during the testing and then read in both the axial strain and the transverse strain. This will allow MCalibration to know the Poissons ratio as a function of the applied strain. Note that this second option only works for uniaxial loading. Do you know what the Poissons ratio is of your foam?[/I]

Unfortunatelly i did not measure it ... but: Optically the foam did not deform laterally as i compressed it uniaxially, [U]the PR must be very small. [/U]

Looking at measuremets of others (Milles, Gilchrist, The effects of heat transfer and Poissons Ratio on closed cell polymer foams / Viot, Beani, Lataillade, Polymeric foam behavior under dynamic compressive loading / etc.) it seems like the PR is very small or even zero even for closed cell foams.

Now, to get the simulation running i guess i have to assume the PR to be between 0.0 and 0.2 for my materials untill i can measure it.

[B]Answer Bergstrm[/B]

[I]Also, what is the mass density of you foam? (That is, what is approximately the void volume fraction)?[/I]

The densities of my foams are between 30 - 40 kg/m that gives void volume fractions of gas between 97% and 98% ... very soft foam!

[B]Answer Bergstrm[/B]

[I]If your material is has a low Poissons ratio then you should not use a material model for elastomers, but instead use a material model developed for foams. The difference being the volumetric response.The most accurate model in your case will be the PN model. I would give it a structure that is similar to the DBB model, but use hyperfoam elastic elements instead of rubber elasticity type hyperelastic elements.[/I]

I tested all three Hyperfoam models available ([8][18][20]) and added Neo-Hookeans as parallel stiffnesses and virtual Poissons Ratio tests just to find out what might work.Here is the best i got when importing as Engineering Stress/Strain

[I]See Fig. 2[/I]

(Hmm...?!?)

And the best result i got with True Stress/Strain. In this case i added a virtual Poissons Ratio of 0.1 (which seems to be a realistic on / i also tested with PRs of 0.05, 0.15, 0.2)

[I]See Fig. 3[/I]

Well, its not perfect but it might be a good basis for a static model...whats your guess?

And finally my current attempt for a DBB like model using Hyperfoam stiffnesses. The Chaboche requires a linear elasticity (with temperature dependency):

[I]See Fig. Materialmodel[/I]

And the best result so far:

[I]See Fig. 5[/I]

Of course this is not yet satisfying but it allready took about ten simulations and manual adjustments of several parameters to get it to this point (and it doesnt seem absolute absurd).

As always: i am very thankfull for any comment and advice about how to go on.

Am i on the right way?

What do you think about the True and Engineering issue?

Greetings from Bremen

Andreas Gierse

As I mentioned in my previous post: If your experiments are measuring the eng strain and eng stress, then you import them as such. And similar for true stress and true strain.

There is a feature in MCalibration to switch the plot back and forth between eng stress-eng strain, and true stress-true strain. That feature is only influencing the graph.

Internally all calculations are done properly based on the type of stress and strain you provided.

Unless your experimental data contain the transverse strain, switching back and forth between eng and true values is based on volume conservation, which is not valid for your foam. So you should either provide experimental data for the transverse strain, or only plot the engineering strain and the engineering stress.

-Jorgen