A rate-dependent constitutive model for aluminum foams and its application to the energy absorption of lightweight sandwich panels with aluminum foam cores
Abstract：Aluminum foam sandwiches with the excellent mechanical and physical properties as lightweight, high specific stiffness and strength, vibration damping and energy absorption, have been wildly applied in the energy absorption device under impact. In this paper, a transverse isotropic rate-dependent constitutive model for aluminum foam has been developed to capture the feature of strain rate sensitivity. Numerical algorithm for computing the rate-dependent constitutive model in finite element method is presented and coded into the commercial software package ABAQUS/Explicit through the user subroutine interface VUMAT. The numerical stability and reliability of the code are verified using a single element model. The implemented model is then used to study the energy absorption capacity of aluminum foam core sandwich panels subject to impact loading. The effect of strain rate of the foam core is explored. Obtained results show that the energy capacity of the foam core increases and the deformation of bottom panel decreases with the increase of rate sensitivity parameters.
2011, Vol. 32 
