Investigation of cell shape effect on the mechanical behaviour of open-cell

metal foams
Yang An
a
, Cuie Wen
b
, Peter D. Hodgson
a
, Chunhui Yang
c,
a
Institute for Technology Research and Innovation, Deakin University, Locked Bag 20000, Geelong, VIC 3220, Australia
b
Faculty of Engineering and Industrial Sciences, Swinburne University of Technology, Hawthorn, VIC 3122, Australia
c
School of Engineering, Deakin University, Locked Bag 20000, Geelong, VIC 3220, Australia
a r t i c l e i n f o
Article history:
Received 11 October 2011
Received in revised form 21 November 2011
Accepted 24 November 2011
Available online 12 January 2012
Keywords:
Open-cell metal foams
Finite element modelling
Cell shape effect
Effective Youngs modulus
Deformation mode
Failure mechanism
a b s t r a c t
The mechanical behaviours of metal foams greatly depend on their cell topology, including cell shape, cell
size etc. as well as relative density and material properties of the cell wall. However, the cell shape effect
on the mechanical behaviours of such materials appears to be ignored in previous research. In this paper,
both analytic and nite element models are developed and employed to investigate the effect of cell
shape on the mechanical behaviour of open-cell magnesium alloy (AZ91) foams under compression,
including deformation modes and failure modes. For numerical modelling, both two-dimensional (2-D)
and three-dimensional (3-D) nite element models are developed to predict the compressive behaviours
of typical open-cell metal foams and capture the deformation modes and failure mechanisms. Two typ-
ical cell shapes i.e. cubic and diamond are taken into consideration. To validate these models, the analytic
and numerical results are compared to the experimental data. Both the numerical and experimental data
indicate that the cell shape signicantly affects the compression behaviour of open-cell metal foams. In
general, numerical results from the three-dimensional solid-element model show better agreement with
the experimental results than those from other nite element models.
2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
Metal foams have been used in a variety of engineering applica-
tions, such as the automotive engineering, aerospace engineering
and biomaterials engineering, where low density and high energy
absorption are important [13]. The mechanical behaviour of these
materials depend on the cell topology, the relative density and
material properties of the cell wall [2,3]. Numerous studies have
focused on how to increase the collapse or critical stress of metal
foams by changing the cell shapes. A number of analytical models
based on an idealized unit cell extracted from a real foam material
have been developed to predict the mechanical properties of cellu-
lar solids because such a unit cell, also called repeating unit or rep-
resentative volume element (RVE), can capture the essential
structural features of a typical cell [4]. The repeating unit is usually
modelled as a hexagonal cell in two-dimensional (2-D) modelling
of honeycomb-like foams [5]. For three-dimensional (3-D) cellular
materials, cubic, tetrahedral, dodecahedral and tetrakaidecahedral
cells have been used to model the repeating units [2,6,7]. It has
been point out that unit cell-based models can provide important
results; however they are signicantly limited by their inability
to account for microstructural imperfections inherent in most real
cellular materials, whose cell structures are in practical non-
periodic, non-uniform and disordered [8]. On the basic research
of cell shape effects of foam materials, some studies [915] have
been carried out on the effects of imperfections, such as irregular
cell shapes, non-uniform cell wall thickness, wavy cell walls, and
part-missing or fractured cell walls, on the mechanical properties
of cellular materials and most of these studies are based on the -
nite element method (FEM) and experimental work. For example,
Silva and Gibson [9] generated non-periodic arrays of 2-D Voronoi
cells with uniform cell wall thickness and found that the irregular-
ity of the cell shape does not introduce signicant variance in the
elastic properties of low-density honeycombs.
The effect of material distribution in the cell edges of hexagonal
honeycombs on the stiffness and strength of metallic foams was
investigated by Huang and Yang [10,11]. Their nite element sim-
ulations indicated that the effective Youngs modulus and peak
stress of a metallic honeycomb initially increases and then de-
creases as the material shifts away from the cell edges into plateau
borders near the vertices. They also investigated the inuence of
edge/face curvature and corrugations on the properties of hexago-
nal honeycomb and indicated that wavy distortions substantially
reduce the effective Youngs modulus and peak stress. The study
of Torquato et al. [12] revealed that random cell wall removals
sharply reduce the effective mechanical properties of both perfect
and imperfect honeycombs. In Chen et al.s work [13], among the
0927-0256/$ - see front matter 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.commatsci.2011.11.030

Corresponding author. Tel.: +61 03 5227 2082.

E-mail address: chunhui.yang@deakin.edu.au (C. Yang).
Computational Materials Science 55 (2012) 19
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random imperfections i.e., cell size variations, fractured cell walls,
cell wall misalignments and missing cells, fractured cell edges
were found to cause the greatest reduction in yield strength of
2-D foams. More recently, Fazekas et al. [14] studied the effects
of cell shape variations on the Youngs modulus and yield strength
of 2-D cellular solids and found that the cell geometry has a large
inuence on the mechanical properties of their cellular solids.
Representative models that link the observed foam properties
to the complex structures of foams can help us understand how
the structures affect the mechanical properties and enable us to
optimize the structural parameters for a given application. Yamada
et al. [15] studied the compressive deformation characteristics of
Mg alloy foams with different controlled cell structures from the
viewpoint of deformation modes of the struts. Their results indi-
cated that the collapse of the cellular Mg alloys is associated with
the deformation modes of the struts. However, in the previous
studies, the compressive behaviour of metal foams has not yet
been fully characterized and clearly understood, especially from
the viewpoint of deformation mode and failure mechanism of cel-
lular structures.
In fact, three different deformation modes can be observed dur-
ing compressive progress of a material: bending, buckling and
compression as described by Gere and Foodno [16]. Different struc-
ture deformation modes lead to different collapse behaviours of
the whole cellular solid. In the present study, we are focusing on
this general perspective on deformation and failure modes of such
foams, i.e. AZ91. Firstly, considering different foams with two types
of cells, we develop their mechanistic models and analytically de-
rive the formulations of the effective Youngs modulus, relative
density and collapse loads/stresses. Secondly, we develop 2-/3-D
nite element models and nite element-based numerical analysis
procedures of open-cell foams. Thirdly, we employ these models to
dynamically simulate and capture the deformation and failure
modes of open-celled metal foams. Then, based on the results ob-
tained, we determine the relations between mechanical properties
and cell shape of metal foams to assess the role of cell shape on the
mechanical properties. Finally, to validate and verify the proposed
modelling and procedures, the numerical results are compared
with theoretical solutions and experimental data available in the
literature [15].
2. Mechanistic models of metal foams considering cell shapes
In this section, the unit cell approach is applied to develop the
analytical solutions of such foams. Based on the experimental work
by Yamada et al. [15], two unit cells, namely, diamond-shaped cell
and cubic-shaped cell, were chosen and investigated in the current
work. Fig. 1 illustrates the foams with these two cell shapes: (a)
diamond and (b) cubic, respectively, where, l is 3.5 mm, t is
0.5 mm and h is 45.
2.1. Effective Youngs modulus and collapse stress of foam materials
For foam materials, their effective Youngs modulus can be esti-
mated using Gibson and Ashbys approach [2]:
E

E
s
C
q

q
s
_ _
2
1
where E

is the Youngs modulus of the foam material; E

s
is the
Youngs modulus of the solid material from which the foam is
made; q

is the density of the foam material; q

s
is the density of
the solid material; C is a constant which is approximately 1.
The relative density, q

/q
s
, of a foam material can be further ob-
tained by:
q

q
s

V
s

12l
t
2

2
l
3
3
t
l
_ _
2
2
where V
s
is the volume of the solid material of the foam, and V

is
the volume of the foam material. Combine Eqs. (1) and (2), the
Youngs modulus of the foam material can be calculated by the fol-
lowing formula:
E

E
s

q
s
_ _
2
3
t
l
_ _
2
_ _
2
9
t
l
_ _
4
3
The collapse stress can be estimated as follows:
r

cp
r
ys
0:3
q

q
s
_ _3
2
4
where r

cp
is the collapse stress of the foam material, and r
ys
is the
yield stress of the solid material .
Combine Eqs. (2) and (4), r
cp
can be given as:
r

cp
r
ys
0:3
q

q
s
_ _3
2
0:3 3
t
l
_ _
2
_ _3
2
1:6
t
l
_ _
3
5
Note that Gibson and Ashbys equations cannot capture the ef-
fects of cell shape because there is not a parameter to account for
this. In the next section, foams with different cell shapes will be
studied.
2.2. Analytical model of a diamond-cell foam
For the diamond-cell foams, a representative unit cell is chosen
as shown in Fig. 2 in which the compressive load N
d
is applied in
the inclined strut.
Therefore the struts are subjected to a combination of bending
moment, axial force and shear when the unit open-cell foam is
subjected to a load. Shear is normally ignored in the analysis due
(a) Diamond-cell foam
(b) Cubic-cell foam
l
l
l
t

F
F
F
F
l
t
l
l
Fig. 1. Illustrations of foams with two different cell shapes.
2 Y. An et al. / Computational Materials Science 55 (2012) 19
to the fact that it is negligible when compared to the bending mo-
ment and axial forces [4].
For linear elastic deformation by uniaxial compression of a
material, the Youngs modulus, E, can be dened by dividing the
compressive stress with the compressive strain as:
E
r
e

F=A
DL=L
0

FL
0
DLA
6
where E is the Youngs modulus (modulus of elasticity), F is the
force applied to the object; A is the original cross-sectional area
through which the force is applied; DL is the amount by which
the length of the object changes; L
0
is the original length of the
object.
In this case, the relationship between the force applied to the
object, F, and the axial force carried on the strut, N
d
, is calculated
by:
F N
d
n
1
n
2
7
where n
1
and n
2
are the total numbers of nodes in x and y directions,
respectively. The original cross-sectional area, A, is given by:
A 2n
1
l cos h n
2
l 8
The amount of total length change for the whole structure un-
der compression, DL, can be calculated by:
DL n
3
Dl n
3
2
N
d
2
cos h l
3
3E
s
I

n
3
cos hN
d
l
3
3E
s
t
4
12
_ _ 9
where n
3
is the total number of nodes along the z direction.
Combine Eqs. (6)(9), the Youngs modulus of the diamond-cell
foam, E

d
, can be calculated by:
E

d

r
e

FL
0
DLA

N
d
n
1
n
2
2n
3
l sinh
n
3
cos hN
d
l
3
3Es
t
4
12
_ _
2n
1
l cos h n
2
l

t
l
_ _
4
sinh E
s
4cos
2
h
)
E
d
E
s

sinh
4cos
2
h
t
l
_ _
4
10
The collapse stress, r

cp
, is then determined by:
r

cp

F
cp
A

N
cp
n
1
n
2
2n
1
l cos h n
2
l

N
cp
2cos h l
2
11
where F
cp
is the collapse or critical force of the whole structure
which is applied remotely and N
cp
is the collapse or critical force lo-
cally carried on the strut.
The highest stress is determined by:
r
N
d
sinh
t
2

N
d
cos h l l
t
4
12

N
d
t
2
sinh 12cos h
l
2
t
2
_ _
12
When the stress, r, reaches the yield stress of the material, r
ys
,
the force N
d
reaches the collapse force N
cp
in the strut.
Hence, the collapse force carried on the strut, N
cp
, is calculated
by:
N
cp

r
ys
t
2
sinh 12cos h
l
2
t
2
13
Combining Eqs. (11)(13), the collapse stress, r
cp
, can be ob-
tained by:
r

cp

r
ys
t
2
sinh 12cos h
l
2
t
2
_ _
2cos h l
2
)
r

cp
r
ys

t
2
sinh 12cos h
l
2
t
2
_ _
2cos h l
2
14
2.3. Analytic model of a cubic-cell foam
For the cubic-cell foams, a representative unit cell is chosen as
shown in Fig. 3 in which the compressive load N
c
is applied on
the straight strut of the cell. Similarly by using the same procedure
developed in Section 2.2, the compression behaviours of the cubic-
cell foams can be obtained as follows:
F N
c
n
1
n
2
15
A n
1
l n
2
l 16
DL n
3
Dl
n
3
N
c
E
s
17
Combining Eqs. (6), (15), and (17), the Youngs modulus of the
cubic-cell foam, E

c
, can be calculated by:
E
c

r
e

FL
0
2DLA

N
c
n
1
n
2
n
3
l
2
n
3
lNc
Est
2
n
1
l n
2
l
E
s
1
2
t
l
_ _
2
)
E
c
E
s

1
2
t
l
_ _
2
18
The collapse stress, r
cp
, can be obtained by the same method. In
cubic-cell foams, buckling is the major deformation mode of the
struts. Hence, the collapse force carried on the struts section, N
cp
,
is obtained by the buckling formula:
N
cp

p
2
E
s
I
2l
2

p
2
E
s
t
4
12
4l
2

p
2
E
s
t
4
48l
2
19
N
d
N
d
Fig. 2. The representative model of a diamond-cell foam subjected to compressive
loads.
Fig. 3. The representative model of a cubic-cell foam subjected to compressive
loads.
Y. An et al. / Computational Materials Science 55 (2012) 19 3
By combining Eqs. (11) and (19), the collapse stress, r
cp
, can be
estimated by:
r

cp

N
cp
l
2

p
2
E
s
t
4
48l
4

p
2
E
s
48

t
l
_ _
4
20
3. Finite element modelling of open-cell foams
Finite element models of cellular materials with different cell
shapes were also developed based on the regular space repetition
of a unit cell according to the congurations of the experimental
specimens shown in Fig. 1. Both two- and three-dimensional
(2-/3-D) beam element models and three-dimensional (3-D) solid
nite element models were built up using the commercial FEApack-
ageAbaqus V6.8. The beamelement BEAM2Dwas employed in the
2-D models. Two types of 3-D elements including the solid element
C3D8R and the beam element BEAM2D were used in the 3-D mod-
els. Fig. 4 illustrates the nite element meshes of the magnesiumal-
loy foam samples for both the 2-D and 3-D cases. The appropriate
meshes were chosen by convergence testing where the numbers
of elements used in the FE models were varied. As a result, the 2-
D element size was chosen as 0.05 mm 0.05 mm and the 3-D ele-
ment size was chosen as 0.05 mm 0.05 mm 0.05 mm, respec-
tively. For the material model of metal foams, an elasticplastic
foam material model offered in Abaqus was adopted. The Youngs
modulus and Poissons ratio of the solid magnesium alloy AZ91
are 45 GPa and 0.36, respectively [17], and its owstresses are listed
in Table 1 [18].
The boundary conditions were the same as those applied in the
experimental study given in Yamada et al.s work [16] and two ri-
gid bodies were used to simulate the tools used for compression.
The upper rigid body was employed to simulate the external com-
pressive loading applied to the top end of the samples and the low-
er rigid body provided xed supports to the bottom of the samples.
Both of the rigid bodies were modelled by using discrete rigid
elements. For 3-D models, the contact pairs between the beam
members were also dened to ensure appropriate self-contacts.
4. Results and discussion
4.1. Effects of the number and size of cells on mechanical properties of
Mg alloy foams
Before proceeding to model foams with different cell shapes, an
important issue that needs to be resolved is to determine the
appropriate number of unit cells to be included in a specimen
and the appropriate cell sizes of specimens to be analysed for each
type of foam. Based on a nite element analysis of random heter-
ogeneous materials using representative volume elements (RVEs)
of various sizes, Kanit et al. [19] found that for a given precision
the effective elastic properties of the materials can be obtained
through using either a large RVE accompanied by a small number
of specimens or a small RVE accompanied by a large number of
specimens. This indicates that the number of specimens needs to
be carefully chosen for accurate predictions. In the current study,
3-D cubic beam models with different amount of unit cells are ana-
(a) 3-D diamond solid model
(b) 3-D cubic solid model
(c) 2-D diamond beam model
(d) 2-D cubic beam model
(e) 3-D diamond beam model
(f) 3-D cubic beam model
Fig. 4. Finite element models of the magnesium alloy foam samples.
Table 1
Plastic behaviours of magnesium alloy AZ91.
Plastic stain Plastic stress
0 560,00,000
0.001 570,00,000
0.004 750,00,000
0.005 800,00,000
0.008 900,00,000
0.01 950,00,000
0.012 970,00,000
0.015 1000,00,000
0.017 1030,00,000
0.02 1070,00,000
0.022 1100,00,000
0.025 1150,00,000
4 Y. An et al. / Computational Materials Science 55 (2012) 19
lyzed and the unit numbers in these models in this research are 8,
27, 64, 125, 216, 343 and 288. All of these units have same size of
4 mm 4 mm 4 mm.
The numerical results of stressstrain curves obtained are
shown in Fig. 5a. To better illustrate these results, the Youngs
modulus and collapse stress of the corresponding properties for
each value of unit amount are drawn separately along the x axis
in Fig. 5b, despite the fact that unit amount is the same for all
properties.
For the cubic foams, the highest Youngs modulus and collapse
stress appear in the model with 64 units with values of 0.131 GPa
and 0.65 MPa, respectively, and the lowest Youngs modulus and
collapse stress appear in the model with eight units and values
of 0.126 GPa and 0.63 MPa, respectively. The Youngs modulus
changes 2.9% as the unit number increased from 8 to 343 while
the collapse stresses change 0.38%. From Fig. 5, it is seen that as
the number of unit cells increases, the values of the Youngs mod-
ulus and the collapse stress do not change signicantly, although
small uctuations (reecting the random nature of the foam struc-
tures) are observed.
In previous research, it was found that the cell size can affect
the mechanical properties of foams. It was well accepted that the
compressive stress increased as the cell size decreased [20,21]. In
present research, 3-D diamond beam models with different unit
cell size of Mg alloy foam are studied and the cell length of these
models in the current study are 2.85 mm, 3.33 mm, 4 mm, 5 mm,
6.67 mm and 10 mm. The compression behaviours obtained from
numerical simulations are shown in Fig. 6. It is found that there
is a slight change in the values of Youngs modulus and collapse
stresses as the cell size decreases from 10 mm to 2.85 mm. The
highest Youngs modulus and collapse stresses are 0.51 GPa and
0.257 MPa, respectively, which is 6.7% and 5.6% larger than the
lowest Youngs modulus and collapse stresses. This indicates that
cell size can affect the mechanical properties of foams due to
the change of the aspect ratio of the wall thickness against the
edge length [22] and the different deformation behaviours during
the compression of cell walls during compression [21]. In the cur-
rent modelling, when the cell sizes change, the aspect ratio of the
cell thickness to the cell length remains unchanged. Therefore, the
decrease of cell size does not lead to large changes in mechanical
properties of the foams.
Furthermore, the 288-cell model (8, 6, and 6 cells in x, y, and z
axes, respectively) with a cell size of 4 mm 4 mm 4 mm was
chosen to be included in the following section, which is also the
same as the specimen designed and tested in the literature [16].
4.2. Compression collapse mechanism and patterns
Fig. 7 shows the evolution of deformation of the foams with dif-
ferent cell shapes loaded in compression. Different deformation
modes were observed in this study and the 3-D and 2-D models
both indicate that the deformations are signicantly different for
the foams with different cell shapes.
The samples with a diamond cell, as shown in Fig. 7a and c, ex-
hibit a crushing-like deformation mode which normally occurs in
bulk solids. The compressive loading causes bending of the beam
struts while axial forces also exist in each strut. As a result, the
bending moment and axial force in the struts leads to the nal fail-
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70
0.0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1.0
1.2
1.4
S
t
r
e
s
s

(
M
P
a
)
Strain (%)
8-unit
27-unit
64-unit
125-unit
216-unit
343-unit
288-unit
(a) Stress-strain curves
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350
0.6
0.7
0.8
0.9
1.0
Collapse Stress
Young's Modulus
Unit amount
C
o
l
l
a
p
s
e

S
t
r
e
s
s

(
M
P
a
)
0.06
0.08
0.10
0.12
0.14
0.16
Y
o
u
n
g
'
s

M
o
d
u
l
u
s

(
G
P
a
)
(b) Collapse stress and Youngs modulus
Fig. 5. The effect of cell number on the compression behaviour of Mg alloy foams.
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70
0.00
0.05
0.10
0.15
0.20
0.25
0.30
0.35
0.40
0.45
0.50
S
t
r
e
s
s

(
M
P
a
)
Strain (%)
Cell size 10mm
Cell size 6.67mm
Cell size 5mm
Cell size 4mm
Cell size 3.33mm
Cell size 2.85mm
(a) Stress-strain curves
2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
0.20
0.25
0.30
0.35
0.40
0.45
0.50
Collapse stress
Young's modulus
Cell size (mm)
C
o
l
l
a
p
s
e

s
t
r
e
s
s

(
M
P
a
)
0.020
0.025
0.030
0.035
0.040
0.045
0.050
0.055
0.060
Y
o
u
n
g
'
s

m
o
d
u
l
u
s

(
G
P
a
)
(b) Collapse stress and Youngs modulus
Fig. 6. The effect of cell size on the compression behaviour of Mg alloy foams.
Y. An et al. / Computational Materials Science 55 (2012) 19 5
ure of this foam structure. Therefore, bending is the major defor-
mation mode in struts of diamond-cell foams.
In contrast, the deformation of cubic-cell foam samples, as de-
picted in Fig. 7b and d, is totally different from the diamond-cell
foam samples. At the beginning, the vertical beam struts are sub-
jected to compression due to the axial forces and then buckling oc-
curs in one layer since the external load in this layer is reaching the
critical buckling load. After bucking, bending deformation develops
and becomes the major deformation mode in this layer until the
layer has completely collapsed. When one layer collapses com-
pletely then buckling occurs in the neighbouring layer and the col-
lapse progresses in the same way. This kind of bucklingbending-
collapse failure mode propagates layer by layer until the whole
structure fails. Both of the buckling and bending behaviours are
important for mechanical properties of the cubic-cell foams.
Because of different deformation and failure modes, the stress
strain curves of the Mg samples with different cell shapes are ex-
tracted and plotted in Fig. 8, which show typical elastoplastic
stressstrain behaviours under compression. The critical stress is
taken at the transition point of linear elastic deformation and foam
collapse and it is termed as the well-known critical strength or col-
lapse strength [23]. After the transition point, the curves show a
long deformation plateau with almost constant stress and in this
stage the beam struts are under bending or bucklingbending-col-
Fig. 7. Evolution of deformations of foams simulated by using 2-/3-D models.
6 Y. An et al. / Computational Materials Science 55 (2012) 19
lapse. Finally, the plateau stage is completed and the stress begins
to rise sharply as the attened cell walls completely collapse and it
is essentially compression of compacting material (i.e., densica-
tion) [24].
The diamond-cell foams deform homogeneously throughout
the entire compression range (up to 68% strain). Cell walls are in
bending continuously during compression, displaying the main
structural collapse mechanism throughout the entire deformation
range. In contrast, the stressstrain curves for cubic-cell foams
are typically serrated, particularly at the onset of plastic ow,
and the upper and lower yield points are often observed. The beam
struts of these foam samples intend to buckle and then bend dur-
ing compression testing and this deformation behaviour leads to
serrations in the stressstrain curves.
The different cell shapes also cause different failure modes and
patterns. For the diamond-cell foams, the failure mode of cell wall
is mainly plastic failure caused by bending in the whole structure.
For the cubic-cell foams, the failure mode of cell walls is elastic fail-
ure caused by buckling at the beginning and plastic failure caused
by bending as well as the combined failure is happened layer by
layer until the whole structure is crushed. The elastic and plastic
failure of cell walls occurs locally and then spreads to the surround-
ing regions during compression.
4.3. Effective Youngs modulus and collapse stress of foams
Youngs modulus E is an important material property indicator
for structural materials and this can be determined numerically
from simulations and analytically by using the analytic formula-
tions developed above.
Assuming that t = 0.5 mm, l = 3.5 mm h = 45, r
ys
= 196 MPa
and E
s
= 45 GPa, the effective Youngs modulus E of the Mg alloy
foams can be determined analytically by using Eqs. (3), (10),
and (18). Based on the Gibson and Ashbys formulation, Eq. (3),
without considering cell shape, the effective Youngs modulus is
0.169 GPa for both diamond- and cubic-cell foams. According to
Eqs. (10) and (18), for the diamond-cell foams, the effective
Youngs modulus is calculated as 0.093 GPa and for the cubic-cell
foam, the effective Youngs modulus of 0.459 GPa is obtained.
Obviously the Gibson and Ashbys formulation can only provide
the result in general and this is closer to the result for
diamond-cell foams.
The effective Youngs modulus of the foams with different cell
shapes can also be extracted from the numerical simulations on
the foams under compression. Using the 3-D models, the effective
Youngs modulus of the foams with diamond- and cubic-cell, E

d
and E

c
are calculated to be 0.096 GPa and 0.46 GPa, respectively.
Using the 2-D models, they are calculated to be 0.015 GPa and
0.35 GPa, respectively. Comparing these data in Table 2, it can be
seenthat the effective Youngs modulus of cubic-cell foams is higher
than that of diamond-cell foams calculated from the 2-D and 3-D
models. Both experimental results and simulation data show that
the effective Youngs modulus of cubic-cell foams is 34 times
greater than that of diamond-cell foams. Among these analytical
and numerical results, the 3-D beam-element model gives good
agreement with the experimental data for both two cell shapes with
only 6.9% and 2.2% discrepancies, respectively. However the 2-D
beam-element and 3-D solid-element models both give larger val-
ues compared with the experimental results and the numerical re-
sults from 3-D solid-element models are much closer to the
proposed analytical solutions. Again, the results obtained through
the Gibson and Ashbys method can only cover the case of cubic-cell
foam and has a 27.1% discrepancy. According to these results, the
cell shape in a foam material signicantly affects the value of its
effective Youngs modulus.
The collapse stress is the other important indicator for metal
foam. As described in Sections 2.2 and 2.3, the collapse stress of me-
tal foams can be calculated by using Eqs. (5), (14), and (20). Using
the Eq. (5) based on the Gibson and Ashby method, the collapse
stress is calculated with a value of 0.915 MPa. By using the proposed
analytical equations Eqs. (14) and (20), the collapse stresses for dia-
mond-cell foams and cubic-cell foams are calculated as 0.048 MPa
and 0.154 MPa, respectively.
Similarly, the collapse stress of metal foams with different cell
shapes were also are obtained from the numerical simulations.
From the 2-D models, the collapse stress of the diamond-cell foams
and cubic-cell foams, r

d
and r

c
are calculated to be 0.092 MPa and
0.18 MPa, respectively. From the 3-D models, these are 0.14 MPa
and 0.33 MPa, respectively. According to Table 3, it can be seen that
the collapse stress is also strongly affected by cell shape. The col-
lapse stress of the cubic-cell foam is approximately 2 times higher
than that of the diamond-cell foams. Among these analytical and
numerical results, the 3-D solid-element model gives closer agree-
ment with the experimental data at both two cell shapes with 7.7%
and 21.2% discrepancies, respectively. Still the results from the 3-D
solid-element models are much closer to the proposed analytical
solutions. For collapse stress, the result obtained through the
Gibson and Ashbys method cannot be used due to a more than
100% discrepancy.
According to the results obtained fromnumerical modelling, the
best simulation results for collapse stress were obtained by using
the 3-Dsolid-element model, which is able to reproduce the plateau
region, cell collapse and the densication region in the stressstrain
curves.
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70
0.0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
0.6
0.7
0.8
0.9
Diamond experiment
Diamond 3-D beam model
Diamond 2-D beam model
Diamond 3-D solid model
S
t
r
e
s
s

(
M
P
a
)
Strain (%)
Strain (%)
(a) Diamond-cell foams
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70
0.0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1.0
1.2
1.4
S
t
r
e
s
s

(
M
P
a
)
Cubic 3-D beam model
Cubic 3-D solid model
Cube Experiment
Cube 2-D beam model
(b) Cubic-cell foams
Fig. 8. Stressstrain curves extracted from numerical simulations and experiments.
Y. An et al. / Computational Materials Science 55 (2012) 19 7
4.4. Energy absorbability
Foams with different cell shapes also show different energy
absorbing behaviours under compression. For a practical energy
absorber, the area under the stressstrain curve represents the en-
ergy absorbed by the whole structure [25]. The normalized energy
absorbability of the foams with different cell shapes, W/E
s
, is ex-
tracted and listed in Table 4. It can be seen that according to the
3-D modelling results and experimental data, the energy absorb-
ability of samples with cubic cells is 1.5 times higher than samples
with diamond cells. Again the 3-D solid-element model provided
the best results compared to experimental results with 4.4% and
21% discrepancies, respectively.
Different deformation modes of foam materials lead to different
energy absorbability. The cubic-cell foams have a combined defor-
mation mode: elastic buckling and plastic bending and thus the en-
ergy can be absorbed in these materials by both buckling and
bending. In contrast, the diamond-cell foams only have a single
deformation mode: elastic and plastic bending and in this case,
the energy can be absorbed only by bending deformation. Conse-
quently, the deformation modes of cell walls can affect energy
absorbability of foams and the energy absorbability of a foam
material can be enhanced through optimal design of its cell shape.
5. Conclusions
The effects of cell number and cell shape on the mechanic prop-
erties of magnesium alloy foams are studied both analytically and
numerically using the nite element method. Failure mechanisms,
mechanical properties and energy absorbability of both diamond-
cell and cubic-cell foams are studied in the current research. To
analytically predict the Youngs modulus and collapse stress, two
mechanistic models have been developed for diamond-cell and
cubic-cell foams, respectively. In nite element modelling, both
2-D and 3-D nite element (FE) models on diamond-cell and cu-
bic-cell foams have been constructed using both solid element
and beam elements to obtain the effective mechanical properties
by simulating previous experimental tests.
Based on the results obtained in the current study, the following
conclusions can be drawn:
The effects of cell number and cell size give around a 5% dis-
crepancy for the Youngs modulus and collapse stress of regular
open-cell Mg alloy foams.
The cell shape signicantly affects the compression behaviour
of open-cell foams which includes compression collapse mech-
anisms, failure modes and patterns, stressstrain curves, effec-
tive Youngs modulus, collapse stress and energy absorbability.
The compression collapse mechanisms for the different foams
are different: diamond-cell foams depend on bending deforma-
tion whereas cubic-cell foams have a combined buckling and
bending deformation. Therefore their failure modes and defor-
mation patterns are totally different.
From the stressstrain curves obtained, the cubic-cell foams
have better performances than diamond-cell foams for all of
the important indicators of material properties, i.e., about
three-time higher in effective Youngs modulus and collapse
stress and almost double in energy absorbability.
The proposed analytic formulations can be applied to predict
the effective Youngs modulus and collapse stress of both
cubic-cell and diamond-cell foams and compared to the Gibson
and Ashbys formulation, the new formulations are developed
considering cell shape.
For numerical simulations, the 3-D solid-element models gener-
ally give the closest agreement by more precisely modelling the
compression testing with the consideration of buckling imper-
fection and self-contact of cells.
Acknowledgement
This original research was supported by the Commonwealth of
Australia, through the Cooperative Research Centre for Advanced
Automotive Technology (AUTOCRC).
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