Journal of Colloid and Interface Science 280 (2004) 202211

www.elsevier.com/locate/jcis

The 3D structure of real polymer foams

Matthew D. Montminy a , Allen R. Tannenbaum b , Christopher W. Macosko a,
a Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, University of Minnesota, 421 Washington Ave. SE, Minneapolis, MN 55455-0132, USA
b Schools of Electrical & Computer Engineering and Biomedical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, 777 Atlantic Dr. NW, Atlanta,
GA 30332-0250, USA
Received 17 September 2003; accepted 26 July 2004
Available online 2 September 2004

Abstract
The intricate structure of polymeric foams may be examined using 3D imaging techniques such as MRI or X-ray tomography followed
by image processing. Using a new 3D image processing technique, six images of polyurethane foams were analyzed to create computerized
3D models of the samples. Measurements on these models yielded distributions of many microstructural features, including strut length and
window and cell shape distributions. Nearly 8000 struts, 4000 windows, and 376 cells were detected and measured in six polyurethane foam
samples. When compared against previous theories and studies, these measurements showed that the structure of real polymeric foams differs
significantly from both equilibrium models and aqueous foams. For example, previous studies of aqueous foams showed that about 70% of
foam windows were pentagons. In the polymeric sample studied here, only 55% of windows were pentagonal.
2004 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Foam; Microstructure; Cells; Characterization; Visualization; 3D image processing; Minimal surface

1. Introduction ins tetrakaidecahedral [6] cell shapes, tetrahedral cell in-

The physical properties and potential applications of
foams result from the chemistry and physical properties of
the bulk material and the cell structure of the foams. The
effect of foam chemistry and processing conditions on phys-
ical properties has been researched extensively, and many
useful empirical structureproperty relationships have been
developed, including many foam density/property relation-
ships [15]. However, relatively little experimental work has
been done to relate foam microstructure with macroscopic
physical properties. This is in part because there are few
good structure characterization methods.
Nonetheless, many theoretical models relating the physi-
cal structure and mechanical performance of polymer foams
have been created using rules formulated by observing soap
froths. These models and discussions relied on assumptions
such as monodispersity, rhombic dodecahedral or Kelv-
* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: macosko@cems.umn.edu (C.W. Macosko).
0021-9797/$ see front matter 2004 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.jcis.2004.07.032
tersections, and Plateaus laws for the formation of soap
froths [2,710]. Other studies simplified foam shapes fur-
ther, using cubic unit cells to describe foam behavior [4,11].
While these relations allowed the creation of many prac-
tically useful and fairly accurate engineering correlations,
they are abstractions which do not necessarily accurately de-
scribe real polymeric or metallic foams.
Indeed, solid foams are very different from aqueous
foams because the base materials have very different ma-
terial properties. Depending on composition and process-
ing temperature, polymeric and metallic foams are usually
formed from materials which are significantly more viscous
than water, and, during their formation, heat transfer, phase
transition, and viscoelastic effects may come into play. Be-
cause of the nature of the base materials and cooling and
phase transition effects, cell nucleation and growth in these
foams is very different than in liquid foams. Most impor-
tantly, solid foams are not equilibrium structures. Depending
on processing conditions, their high viscosity and low melt-
ing points results in quenching of the foaming process well
 M.D. Montminy et al. / Journal of Colloid and Interface Science 280 (2004) 202211
before a stable state in the liquid phase is reached. This
at least partially invalidates the use of the observations of
Plateau [7] in describing the structure of solid foams. To
further advance our knowledge of foam structureproperty
relationships, better investigation of the structures of real
solid foams is needed.
Foam measurements are generally taken using visual in-
spection, photography, or optical microscopy. In particu-
lar, optical microscopy techniques can be used to measure
many features, including window thickness, cell diameters
and strut lengths [12,13]. Confocal microscopy can also be
used to examine foam structures [14]. However, because
of the complicated three-dimensional structures of foams,
measuring foam features manually using these techniques
is tedious, time consuming, and often requires destruction
of the sample. In addition, some distinguishing features of
foams, including cell volume, are extremely difficult to mea-
sure at all using traditional techniques. As a result, there
are few experimental studies which correlate microstructure
and macroscopic properties. Cell size and anisotropy [1] and
open-celled content [2] are known to affect some physical
properties, but because of the lack of complete structural
data, predictive modeling is not possible.
Image processing can be used in order to help ameliorate
this dilemma. Previous studies using 2D image processing
to automate foam measurement collected data in a fraction
of the time required for physical inspection. In most earlier
studies using automated image analysis to extract structural
information; however, only one or a few structural mea-
surements were compared to physical properties [1517].
Furthermore, the use of different standards for even sim-
ple measurements such as cell diameter [18] makes it dif-
ficult to compare the results of similar studies to develop
a body of structureproperty knowledge. For these reasons,
a method for more complete characterization of foams is
needed.
Creating an accurate 3D scale model of an actual foam
sample in computer memory provides a method for more
complete characterization. Then, many spatial measure-
ments such as strut length and cell size can easily be made
on the scale model rather than measuring the actual sample.
If sufficiently large and reliable computerized 3D models of
real foams can be created, researchers can obtain measure-
ments from the 3D model rather than measuring features of
the original foam sample. Measurement criteria can be built
Table 1
Polyurethane foam samples analyzed in this study
Sample Original volume Mass density
# size (voxels) (lb/cu ft)
1a 293 293 300 2.1
1b 226 226 300 2.1
2a 294 312 300 1.1
2b 275 284 300 1.1
3 245 236 128
4 213 223 100
203
into the model, and can be manipulated to allow for the var-
ious styles of measurements.
Such models can be created using 3D imaging techniques
such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) or X-ray com-
puterized tomography (CT) coupled with 3D image process-
ing [1927]. However, the difficulties involved in 3D image
analysis, including image noise and memory and processing
constraints, have prevented previous models from tackling
large datasets and achieving widespread use in industry. Pan-
grle et al. [25] did not model any cells, but estimated cell
density from strut and window statistics. Kose and Kashi-
wagi [23,24] detected and measured 8 cells in their gelatin
foam sample. Monnereau and Vignes-Adler [21] detected
and modeled 9 bubbles within wet and dry foam samples.
While Cenens et al. [19] modeled and examined a much
more significant number of cells, they did so using a water-
shed segmentation method which estimated strut locations
based on the approximated locations of cell centers. This
approach does not necessarily capture the true structure of
foams, since it implicitly assumes that all cell borders will
lie halfway between cell centers. This assumption is ques-
tionable when analyzing polydisperse foams.
In this study, computer models of real, open-celled, poly-
disperse polyurethane foams were created. These models are
true to the actual structure of the foam specimens modeled,
with struts, vertices, windows, and cells detected directly
from their locations in 3D X-ray tomography images of
real foams. Such computerized foam models may become
invaluable in examining the complicated relationships be-
tween the physical properties and structures of solid foams,
or in detecting subtle changes in foam structure resulting
from changes in foam formulation.
2. Materials and methods
The structures of six polyurethane foam samples were
investigated in detail over the course of this research [28].
Background information on each samples is provided in
Table 1. Samples 1a and 1b were high density foams ob-
tained from the same foam sample provided by Air Products
and Chemicals (Allentown, PA). Samples 2a and 2b were
taken from a low-density foam sample from Air Products.
Both Samples 1 and 2 were made on a slabstock production
machine. Sample 3 is FoamEx 40, a commercial structural
Approx. cell Description Source
density (cells/cm)
20 Open-celled slabstock foam Air Products
20 Open-celled slabstock foam Air Products
14 Open-celled slabstock foam Air Products
14 Open-celled slabstock foam Air Products
6 Reticulated slabstock foam FoamEx 40
8 Handmade foam bun Created in lab
204 M.D. Montminy et al. / Journal of Colloid and Interface Science 280 (2004) 202211
Fig. 1. Cross-section of the 3D image of the foam sample.
foam, and Sample 4 was created in our laboratory. Samples
1, 2, and 4 were made using standard flexible polyurethane
formulations similar to those described in Refs. [1], [14],
and [25]. All images presented in this section are from Sam-
ple 1a.
A 3D image of this foam was obtained via micro X-
ray computerized tomography (CT), in which a 3D image
is mathematically reconstructed from a set of 2D X-ray
shadow images [29]. CT was performed on these samples
using a SkyScan (Aartselaar, Belgium) 1072 desktop micro-
tomograph, and a typical foam image cross-section from the
sample is presented as Fig. 1. The black voxels within this
image represent the locations of foam struts, while the white
areas represent void space. The best spot resolution currently
available on this instrument is about 5 m [30], so this imag-
ing method is only practical for the in-depth observation of
samples with average cell diameters of over 100 m.
3D images obtained using X-ray CT or MRI contain a
great deal of information about foam structure, but extract-
ing this information from these images is difficult. A 3D
image processing algorithm [31] and an image processing
software package called FoamView [28] were developed
specifically to extract structural information from 3D foam
images.1
A brief overview of the image analysis process is pro-
vided here. Once a 3D foam image has been acquired and
converted to the appropriate data format, the image analy-
sis process can begin. The first step in the process involves
determining which voxels within the image volume repre-
sent foamed material and which voxels represent void space.
This image processing method is called segmentation. The
segmentation process converts the original 8-bit grayscale
1 FoamView, a users manual, and a 3D model of the sample described
here are available online as Supplementary Material.
Fig. 2. Surface rendering of the foam sample. Notice that this sample is very
large and contains about 100 cells. In the foam visualizations presented in
this paper, fog is used to convey depth. Lighter, washed-out sections of
the image are farther away from the viewer than darker sections.
image volume, which may have up to 256 different colors,
into a binary volume image. In this binary volume image,
voxels with a value of 0 (black) represent the foam struc-
ture, while those with a value of 1 (white) represent void
space. This binary volume image is the volume model. The
creation of this model is important because segmenting the
image creates a real distinction between the locations in the
image where the foam structure exists and those where void
space exists. This distinction is necessary for the detection
and analysis of shapes within the image and the creation of
the next two models. A 3D surface rendering of this volume
model is shown in Fig. 2.
From the volume model, a stick figure model of the foam
sample is created. The stick figure model is used to extract
most of the useful structural information present in the foam
image. The stick figure model contains the locations of the
struts, windows, and cells which comprise the cellular struc-
ture of the foam. The transition of the thick struts from the
volume model into a stick figure is performed using an im-
age processing technique called volume thinning.
During volume thinning, dark voxels are successively re-
moved from the thick foam structure until only a set of
strut centerlines remains. The volume thinning algorithm
used [32] guarantees that the resulting skeleton preserves
the connectivity of the original foam sample and is as close
to the actual centerline as possible. From this thinned vol-
ume image, a stick figure is created. Noise in the image and
thick, difficult to resolve vertices cause some artifacts to ap-
pear within the stick figure, but the stick figure can be refined
automatically or interactively using our package FoamView.
A result for this sample is presented as Fig. 3.
This resulting stick figure model consists of lists of the lo-
cations of vertices of the foam structure and the struts which
 M.D. Montminy et al. / Journal of Colloid and Interface Science 280 (2004) 202211 205

Fig. 3. Refined stick figure model of the sample. This model contains over
100 complete cells. In this visualization, the foam struts are shown as blue Fig. 4. Visual comparison of the surface and stick figure models for the
cylinders, vertices are small red spheres, and detected cells show up as large sample.
transparent blue spheres. Detected windows are shaded green.

connect them. From this information, foam cells and win-

dows are detected. Since the locations of all of these features
are stored in computer memory, struts, strut intersection an-
gles, windows, and cells are all measured directly using this
model.
This image analysis approach yields models which are
derived directly from the actual strut structure apparent in the
original 3D image, ensuring faithfulness to the actual foam
structure. These models correspond well with surface ren-
derings showing the surface of the foam in the original 3D
image, as shown in Figs. 4 and 5 and inspection of the results
in 3D using the FoamView software.2
Thanks to the high level of automation present within the
image analysis process, this method can quickly provide data
on foam samples. Image acquisition at 1024 1024 512
voxel resolution requires about 3 h of instrument time us-
ing current X-ray CT technology, and image processing took Fig. 5. Close-up of the foam structure showing the correlation between the
from 24 h for the above samples, depending on sample detected strut, vertex, and cell locations and the original foam volume. The
size. Most of this time (all but about 20 min for each sam- large, blue spheres in the image indicate the centers of detected foam cells.
ple) was spent on user-assisted detection of foam features Some struts (top middle and bottom left) were not detected because they are
incomplete struts on the edge of the image.
using FoamView. The user can view and edit the 3D stick
figure structure while comparing it to the original 3D image
in FoamView, improving on the automated result and ensur- ter filtered by the human eye than by computer algorithms,
ing that stick figure model corresponds well to the original especially in 3D.
3D image of the foam structure. While this prevents exact re-
producibility of results, it allows models to be created from
3. Results and discussion
fairly poor foam images. Noise and other artifacts can be bet-
As shown in Table 2, between the six samples imaged and
2 The original foam volume and stick figure model can be compared analyzed over the course this research, 376 cells were de-
interactively using the FoamView software and sample datasets available tected. Nearly 8000 foam struts and 4000 windows were also
online as Supplementary Material. detected and measured. Note that the cell densities listed
206 M.D. Montminy et al. / Journal of Colloid and Interface Science 280 (2004) 202211

Table 2
Features measured in the samples analyzed in this study
Sample Approx. cell # features detected Avg. cell Std. dev. of cell
# density (cells/cm) Struts Vertices Windows Cells volume (mm3 ) volume (mm3 )

1a 20 2066 1111 1063 106 0.19 0.15

1b 20 1249 682 628 60 0.21 0.17
2a 14 1328 740 631 54 0.31 0.29
2b 14 1120 620 559 58 0.32 0.37
3 6 1176 651 578 54 4.15 1.8
4 8 1024 568 494 44 3.21 0.57
Total 7963 4372 3953 376

in the table are linear cell densities estimated by counting the Table 3
number of cells in a straight line on the surface of the sample Measurements and statistics describing the cellular structure of the sample
before processing, while the cell volumes listed were mea- Basic measurements
sured using the 3D microscopy technique described above. Image resolution 293 293 300 voxels
Each cell volume is roughly proportional to the cube of the Voxel size 12.27 12.27 12.27 m
reciprocal of the corresponding linear cell density, resulting Sample volume 47.30 mm3
in the higher average cell volumes found in Samples 3 and 4. Solid volume 3.18 mm3
Solid fraction 0.0671
Because of its complexity and polydisperse cell size dis- Anisotropy ratio 1.292
tribution, only the results for Sample 1a will be discussed
in detail here. See Ref. [28] for detailed information on the Window shape distribution # features detected
remaining samples. 9 Triangles 2066 Struts
251 Quadrilaterals 1111 Vertices
587 Pentagons 1063 Windows
3.1. Overview of sample measurements and statistics 205 Hexagons 106 Cells
11 Heptagons +
The resulting 3D model consists of a set of vertex loca- Cell structure statistics
tions and lists of the vertices composing foam struts, win-
Strut Interior Window Cell Cell Cell
dows, and cells. This information is used to calculate many length angles area volume surface area isoparametric
statistics and perform many measurements of foam features. (mm) (deg) (mm2 ) (mm3 ) (mm2 ) quotient
Table 3 shows selected measurements and statistics describ- Mean 0.281 106.72 0.133 0.193 1.749 0.646
ing the structure of Sample 1a, our highlighted foam sample. Std. dev. 0.104 17.78 0.080 0.145 0.834 0.075
As shown in Table 3, the vertex location and connectivity Min 0.079 20.70 0.006 0.012 0.323 0.407
information from the stick figure model generated from this Max 0.716 164.57 0.520 0.937 5.151 0.823
sample image provides a wealth of information. Structural Cell shape information
unit measurements, including strut lengths, interior angles, Mean # of windows per cell 13.01
window areas, and cell volumes and surface areas are avail-
able. Shape information, including cell and window shapes,
cell isoparametric quotients, and the amount of anisotropy
present within the structure can also be calculated. The
anisotropy ratio describes the elongation of the foam in the
rise direction versus that in the other major directions. The
isoparametric quotient, 36V 2 /A3 , is a ratio of volume to
surface area which indicates how spherical a cell is; a sphere
has an isoparametric quotient of 1. Together, all this infor-
mation provides a detailed snapshot of the foam samples
microstructure.

3.2. Strut lengths

2066 individual struts were detected and measured within

this sample. The mean length of foam struts detected within
the sample was 0.28 mm. A strut length distribution his-
togram for the sample is presented as Fig. 6. Notice that
the strut lengths fall in a right-skewed distribution, a com- Fig. 6. Strut length distribution for the foam sample.
 M.D. Montminy et al. / Journal of Colloid and Interface Science 280 (2004) 202211
Fig. 7. Strut intersection angle distribution for the foam sample.
mon distribution shape for statistics describing natural sys-
tems. The shape of this strut length distribution corre-
sponds well with those detected in previous foam structure
studies [19,25] as well as with the strut length distribu-
tions of other samples analyzed over the course of this re-
search [28].
3.3. Strut intersection angles
When a load is placed on a foam, it places a stress on
both the struts of the foam and the vertices at which they
intersect. Therefore, analysis of the angles at which struts
intersect may provide important insight into foam behavior.
Strut intersection angles have been previously examined and
measured using image processing approaches by Cenens et
al. [19], Kose [23], and Pangrle et al. [25]. Fig. 7 shows the
distribution of the 5273 interior angles at which the foam
struts meet within the sample. The angles appear to fall in
a nearly normal distribution. The mean strut intersection an-
gle of 106.7 is close to but significantly smaller than the
expected tetrahedral angle of 109.5 at which four edges
meeting at a corner should intersect in an equilibrium struc-
ture, as noted by Plateau [7]. All of the other samples in
Tables 1 and 2 also had average intersection angles signifi-
cantly smaller than 109.5 [28]. There are possible reasons
for this variation from the theoretical rule. First, as noted
in the introduction, foamed polymers are not equilibrium
structures. Structural foams are frozen before being able to
reach complete equilibrium. Second, there are stresses on
the shape of real foam systems. This sample was a slabstock
polyurethane foam, and, as such, has cells that were elon-
gated in the rise direction during the rising process. Surface
tension is not the main driving force at work in determin-
ing cell shape for polymer foams. In addition, we observed
that in real foams, more than four edges may meet at a ver-
tex. A few occurrences of this phenomenon within a large
sample may significantly depress the mean intersection an-
gle.
207
Fig. 8. Window area distribution for the foam sample.
3.4. Window size and shape
Many practical characteristics of foams, including their
ability to be used as filters or catalyst supports, depend upon
the sizes of a foams windows. The distribution of areas for
the 1063 windows detected within the sample is provided as
Fig. 8.
Window area is calculated by partitioning each window
into a set of triangles, and calculating the area of these tri-
angles. Each of these triangles has vertices at two adjacent
window vertices plus the windows centroid. This is neces-
sary since the vertices of real foam windows rarely lie within
a plane.
Notice that the window area distribution is another right-
skewed distribution, but that this distribution is more signif-
icantly skewed than the strut length distribution presented
above. This suggests that there is more diversity in window
sizes than in strut lengths within the sample. The differ-
ence between the strut length and window area distributions
can be explained by two effects. First, window areas are
roughly proportional with the square of strut lengths, broad-
ening the distribution. Second, shape may play a significant
factor in window size. When struts of like size are used to
create both quadrilateral and hexagonal windows, two dif-
ferent windows sizes may be created, resulting in a broader
distribution. Finally, anisotropy in the rise direction will also
widen the window size distribution.
3.5. Window shape
Window shape has previously been used to describe foam
cells and how they divide space [6,23,33,34]. Kelvin [6] pro-
posed the tetrakaidecahedron (a 14-sided shape consisting
of six quadrilaterals and eight hexagons) as a shape which
would minimize surface area within a monodisperse foam
and should therefore be favored at equilibrium. Weire and
Phelan [34] suggested that a tessellation of equally sized
cells with pentagonal and hexagonal sides could more effi-
ciently subdivide space. However, Matzke [33] showed that
208 M.D. Montminy et al. / Journal of Colloid and Interface Science 280 (2004) 202211

Table 4
Comparison of window shapes for the foam Sample 1 with window shapes expected by other models and experiments
# cells Window shape distribution (%)
analyzed Triangles Quadrilaterals Pentagons Hexagons Heptagons +
Kelvin model [6] 0 43 0 57 0
WeirePhelan model [34] 0 0 89 11 0
Matzke experiment [33] 600 0 11 67 22 <1
Kose experiment [23] 8 0 9 70 21 0
Sample 1a 106 1 24 55 19 1
Note that only central bubbles from Matzkes experiments (those in the center of his jars, unaffected by edge effects) are listed here.

in reality, even monodisperse liquid foams consist of cells

and windows of many varied shapes.
Nine triangles, 251 quadrilaterals, 587 pentagons, 205
hexagons, and 11 heptagons were detected in the sample.
Most of the windows in our sample have the expected
quadrilateral, pentagonal, and hexagonal shapes, with the
pentagonal window being the most common shape.
Table 4 provides a comparison of the distribution of win-
dow shapes found in this study to those found in area mini-
mizing models and other foam characterization experiments.
Note that the foam studied here has a much more diverse
window shape distribution than those hypothesized in area-
minimizing models. This is largely due to our samples poly-
dispersity. In addition, notice that the cell shape distributions
of the Kose [23] and Matzke [33] experimental results, both Fig. 9. Cell volume distribution for the foam sample.
performed on liquid foams, are very similar to each other,
but quite different than the window shapes within the poly-
mer foam examined in this study. These results highlight the Table 5
Distribution of cell shapes for the foam sample
facts that polymeric foams do not follow ideal theoretical
structures. The structures found in this foam are more con- # sides # occurrences Frequency (%)
sistent with recent studies of random soap froths found in 7 3 3
8 4 4
the important work of Kraynik [35,36]. Modeling and study
9 4 4
of foams with these less ordered, more realistic polydisperse 10 7 7
structures may allow a better understanding of the correla- 11 19 18
tion between foam physical properties and microstructure. 12 12 11
13 13 12
14 14 13
3.6. Cell size and shape 15 10 9
16 4 4
17 9 8
The polydispersity of cell sizes within this foam is most 18 5 5
apparent when the foam cell volume distribution is exam-
21 1 1
ined. This distribution, presented in Fig. 9, is skewed very
heavily to the right, indicating a high degree of polydisper- 24 1 1
sity of cell sizes. In fact, of the 106 cells detected, the 10 Total: 106 cells
largest cells make up 25% of the sample volume. Statistics Average # sides: 13.01
like this one may give a good way to quantify polydisper-
sity from an engineering perspective, since a small number
of large gaps in the foam structure (cells that are too large) Along with polydispersity of cell sizes comes diversity
can drastically impact a foams performance. in cell shapes. When very large and fairly small cells share
Cell volumes are calculated using a method analogous to borders in a sample, the large cells can end up with very large
the window area calculation method described above. Each numbers of windows, as shown in Table 5. In this sample,
cell is split into a set of pyramids with the top of each pyra- most cells detected had 1115 sides, but cells composed of
mid at the centroid of the cell, and the base of each pyramid 18, 21, and 24 windows were also detected.
being a window. The volume of all of these pyramids for The average cell detected in the sample was 13-sided,
each cell are added together to calculate the cell volume. which is somewhere between a rhombic dodecahedron and
 M.D. Montminy et al. / Journal of Colloid and Interface Science 280 (2004) 202211 209

Table 6
Comparison between the highlighted sample results (Sample 1a) and those of an adjacent sample of the same foam (Sample 1b)
Sample Cells Mean strut Mean interior Mean window Mean cell Mean cell surface Mean # windows
# detected length (mm) angle (deg) area (mm2 ) volume (mm3 ) area (mm2 ) per cell
1a 106 0.281 106.7 0.133 0.193 1.749 13.01
1b 60 0.281 106.1 0.134 0.209 1.84 13.37

Difference (%) 0.0 0.6 0.8 8.3 5.2 2.8

Table 7
Comparison between two adjacent samples of another piece of polyurethane foam (Samples 2a and 2b)
Sample Cells Mean strut Mean interior Mean window Mean cell Mean cell surface Mean # windows
# detected length (mm) angle (deg) area (mm2 ) volume (mm3 ) area (mm2 ) per cell
2a 54 0.319 107.1 0.178 0.308 2.371 12.98
2b 58 0.330 107.5 0.192 0.319 2.318 12.40

Difference (%) 3.4 0.4 7.9 3.6 2.2 4.5

Kelvins tetrakaidecahedron, two theoretically proposed and
popular approximations of foam cell shapes. This suggests
that these shapes may provide reasonable approximations of
actual foam shapes, but the diversity of cell shapes within
this sample show that these truly are simplified models of the
actual structure of real polymer foams. Polydisperse foams
naturally have more diverse cell shapes.
3.7. Other quantitative measurements
Other quantitative measurements can be made using the
model information collected from the 3D foam image, al-
though these measurements tend to be less accurate than
those listed above due to image limitations. Solid fraction
and average strut thickness can be calculated by counting
the dark pixels from the segmented 3D image. However, as
shown in Fig. 1, the original images are somewhat blurry,
and it is difficult to decide exactly where the surface of the
strut begins. This is inconsequential when determining strut
lengths because of the connectivity of the foam structure,
but causes trouble when strut thickness is examined. Un-
fortunately, this issue cannot be resolved by using higher
scanning resolution because bigger, more detailed pictures
would slow down the main image processing method dis-
cussed.
When a slabstock foam rises quickly, its cells are of-
ten stretched in the direction in which the foam rises. This
anisotropy or elongation is important to the final physical
properties of the foam, since the structure is strengthened
in the direction of elongation, much like the structure of an
egg. The anisotropy ratio displayed in Table 2 gives a rough
measure of elongation within the system. It is determined
by calculating the sum of absolute values of the dot prod-
ucts of the vectors describing each strut with the x, y, and
z unit vectors, then dividing the largest of these values by
the smallest. That is, the x, y, and z component of each strut
within the model is calculated, and the sum of each direc-
tional component for all struts is calculated. If the sample is
placed into the imaging device with the rise direction facing
up, as this sample was, it provides a relatively good measure
of anisotropy within the system, with more elongated foam
systems exhibiting higher anisotropy ratios.
3.8. Reproducibility
Comparison of Sample 1as statistical results to those of
an adjacent sample from the same foam (Sample 1b) show
good agreement, as shown in Table 6. Results for Samples
2a and 2b are also provided in Table 7. Notice that in both
cases, the statistical results for the two samples agree within
less than 10%, and that the largest errors occur for cell-based
measurements, where the number of samples averaged is
small (60 and 106 cells vs thousands of struts, angles, and
windows detected).
Ensuring reproducibility of image processing results de-
pends upon careful inspection of the model and comparison
of the model to the original 3D image by the person using the
image analysis software. Because of the time and expense
involved in obtaining and creating 3D images of foams, and
performing multiple experiments to ensure reproducibility,
this technique is more difficult and expensive than for other
experimental techniques. In this study, each sample was sent
to an external laboratory for imaging, and imaging of each
sample cost about $500.
3.9. Method and model limitations
While this method offers a new way to create models of
foams, it has some limitations. First, while the image analy-
sis process may be faster than traditional microscopy and
examination of foams, it is still relatively time intensive. Al-
though the process is semi-automated, analysis of the six
samples examined over the course of this work required
24 h each. Most of this time was spent on user-assisted
analysis of the 3D images. While this time frame is rea-
sonable for researchers, it prevents the use of this method
for real time quality analysis and control of manufactured
foams. In addition, processing difficulty scales with the cube
210 M.D. Montminy et al. / Journal of Colloid and Interface Science 280 (2004) 202211
of the image size, so large images can quickly become too
slow and difficult to process. At the time of this research, the
293 293 300 voxel size of Sample 1a stretched the capa-
bilities of the image processing hardware used, 733 MHz PC
with an nVidia GeForce 2 graphics card with its own graph-
ics processor.
In addition, 3D imaging equipment has limited resolu-
tion. Current micro X-ray CT has a resolution of about
5 m [30], while recent MRI experiments [26,27] obtained
resolutions of 8 m. Due to this constraint, for reasonably ac-
curate measurements to be obtained, struts must be at least
100 m long and about 20 m thick. This precludes the
analysis of microcellular polymers, which have cell diam-
eters of 10 m or less [37].
Because of the limited resolution of 3D imaging equip-
ment, some foam features cannot be accurately detected or
measured. As described above, strut thickness is difficult to
judge because of the weak CT signal generated by foam
struts and the small length to thickness ratio of the struts.
Struts are often only 5 voxels thick in a 3D foam image,
making strut width measurement quite inaccurate. Similar
problems would plague attempts at quantifying strut surface
area or foam surface roughness. Relatively thick vertices
are common in polydisperse foams, and some judgment is
required in locating the center of these vertices. This in-
troduces some imprecision into the measurement of strut
intersection angles, as small movements to a vertex can sig-
nificantly impact these angles.
Thin windows are also difficult to detect and measure
at this resolution, preventing analysis of window thickness
and percentage of open-celled content. Since the thickness
or existence of windows can drastically affect the physi-
cal properties of a foam [3,5], this method would have to
be combined with window measurement techniques such as
traditional microscopy or air flow measurements to create a
complete picture of closed-celled foam structure.
4. Conclusions
The software and foam structural data presented in this
paper show that in-depth 3D characterization and modeling
of real structural foams is possible and can yield interesting
results. For the polydisperse polyurethane foam discussed
in this paper, feature size distributions provided significant
insight into the samples structure.
This research shows that real polymeric foams may have
not only polydisperse cell sizes, but rich, diverse arrays of
cell and window shapes. Since polymeric foams are not equi-
librium structures, they exhibit disordered structures which
are quite different from the perfectly ordered, monodisperse
tetrakaidecahedral or cubic unit cells previously used to
model the physical properties of foams.
The development of models of real polymeric foams is
an enabling technology which will facilitate future research
into the structure and physical performance of foams. Mod-
els of real polymeric foams could be used to (1) model foam
performance at many levels, including modeling of foam
compression and fluid flow through foams, and (2) analyze
many elements of foam structure at once to develop ro-
bust structureproperty, structurechemistry, and structure
processing relationships.
Reliable computerized models of real foams have many
potential uses. There is a significant industrial demand for
improved characterization techniques for quality control and
new product development in the polymeric foams industry.
This method allows for the study of foams at a microstruc-
ture level, and may perhaps allow the detection of subtle
structural changes due to changes in foam formulations, such
as the addition of catalysts or surfactants. Study of the effects
of the microstructural properties of foams on their macro-
scopic physical properties may assist in the development
of new foams for various applications. Academic studies
of foam compression, fluid flows through foams, and cell
nucleation would directly benefit from 3D models of real
foams. Theories developed using ideal foam models could
be tested on real foams with irregular shapes and in nonideal
conditions.
However, 3D characterization tools must be developed
further if they are to be used for many industrial purposes.
Developing robust structureproperty relationships will re-
quire the analysis of hundreds of samples, which would still
be a daunting task using this method, since sample analy-
sis requires about 24 h for image analysis, plus instrument
time for image acquisition. Quality control applications also
require a quick turnover time to ensure that a minimum
amount of product is wasted, making this method useful as
a quality control check for small batch processes but infea-
sible for large-scale continuous processes. Future research
will hopefully yield faster image acquisition and faster, more
automated image analysis algorithms, providing for quicker
analysis of samples to serve these industrial uses.
Acknowledgments
The authors thank Dr. Mark Listemann, Air Products and
Chemicals, and Dr. Xiao Dong Zhang, Dow Chemical, for
providing foam samples and input for this paper. We thank
Andy Kraynik for his very helpful comments. This paper
is based upon work supported by a National Science Foun-
dation Graduate Research Fellowship. This work was also
supported in part by grants from the National Science Foun-
dation, the Air Force Office of Research, the Army Research
Office, and MURI grant.
Supplementary material
The online version of this article contains additional sup-
plementary material.
Please visit DOI: 10.1016/j.jcis.2004.07.032.
 M.D. Montminy et al. / Journal of Colloid and Interface Science 280 (2004) 202211
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