Polymer Testing 32 (2013) 673–680

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Polymer Testing
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/polytest

Short communication: Material properties

A comparison between dynamic and static fracture toughness

of polyurethane foams
Liviu Marsavina a, *, Emanoil Linul a, Tudor Voiconi a, Tomasz Sadowski b
a
POLITEHNICA University of Timisoara, Department Mechanics and Strength of Materials, Blvd. M. Viteazu, Nr.1, Timisoara 300222,
Romania
b
Lublin University of Technology, Faculty of Civil and Sanitary Engineering, 20-618 Lublin, Nadbystrzycka 40 Str., Poland

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The paper presents a correlation between dynamic and static fracture toughness of
Received 29 January 2013 polyurethane rigid foams. Static three point bend tests and instrumented impact tests
Accepted 9 March 2013 were performed using single edge notch specimens. The obtained results show that for all
foam densities the dynamic fracture toughness is higher than the static toughness. Density
Keywords: appears to have the main influence on both static and dynamic fracture toughness. A quasi
Polyurethane foam
brittle fracture without plastic deformations and cushioning was observed for all foam
Static fracture toughness
densities.
Dynamic fracture toughness
Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction were experimental tests, but micromechanical analytical

Polyurethane (PUR) foams are made of interconnected
networks of solid struts and cell walls incorporating voids
with entrapped gas. The main characteristics of PUR foams
are light weight, high porosity, high crushability and good
energy absorption capacity [1]. Taking into account these
properties, PUR foams are widely used as cores in sandwich
composites, for packing and cushioning. It is well known
that the foam crushes in compression, Fig. 1a, while in
tension it fails by propagation of a single crack, Fig. 1b. Most
of the rigid polymer foams have a linear elastic behavior in
tension up to fracture, and a brittle fracture, so they can be
assessed based on Linear Elastic Fracture Mechanics
(LEFM) [2]. Consequently, the fracture toughness of PUR
foams represents an important property.
Many efforts have been carried out in recent years to
determine the fracture toughness of different types of
foams under static loadings [3–9]. Most of these studies
* Corresponding author. Tel.: þ40 726397635; Fax: þ40 256403523.
E-mail addresses: msvina@mec.upt.ro, lmarsavina@yahoo.com (L.
Marsavina).
models were also considered.
The first correlation between fracture toughness of
PUR foams and density (<200 kg/m3) was proposed by
McIntyre and Anderson [3] in a linear form. The same
behaviour was observed by Danielsson [4] on PVC
Divinycell foams and Viana and Carlsson on Diab H foams
[5]. A correlation between the static fracture toughness
and relative pffiffiffiffidensity
ffi r/rs was proposed in [1] in the form:
KIc ¼ C sfs plðr=rs Þm , where sfs is the tensile strength of
the cell wall solid material in bending, l is the cell
dimension, C represents a constant of proportionality and
m an exponent (equal to 3/2 for open cells). The fracture
toughness of rigid polyurethane foams was expressed by
GIc and was determined using Double Cantilever Beam
(DCB) specimens, Fowlkes [10].
Up to now, there are only few results for dynamic fracture
toughness of plastic foams reported in the literature. Kabir
et al. [6] investigated the Mode I dynamic fracture toughness
of 260 kg/m3 density PVC foam and obtained a maximum
value of 2.74 MPa m0.5, which is approximately 3.75 times
higher than the static fracture toughness of the same foam.
Mills and Kang [11] used a falling mass on a polystyrene (PS)

0142-9418/$ – see front matter Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.polymertesting.2013.03.013
674 L. Marsavina et al. / Polymer Testing 32 (2013) 673–680

compact tension specimen made in order to determine the

dynamic fracture toughness, and Mills [12] also proposed a
correlation between the dynamic fracture toughness and
foam density. The effect of an impregnation layer on fracture
toughness of polyurethane rigid foams was investigated by
Marsavina and Sadowski [13].
Fig. 1. Degradation of plastic foams in compression (a.) and bending (b.).
This paper presents comparatively the static and dy-
namic fracture toughness results for closed cells poly-
urethane rigid foams. The experiments were carried out
using Single Edge Notched Bend (SENB) specimens.

Fig. 2. SEM microstructures of the investigated foams.

 L. Marsavina et al. / Polymer Testing 32 (2013) 673–680 675

Table 1
Static and dynamic compression properties of the investigated foams.

Density Young’s modulus [MPa] Yield stress [MPa] Plateau stress [MPa] Densification [%]

Static Dynamic Static Dynamic Static Dynamic Static Dynamic

40 4.20 4.50 0.38 0.37 0.39 0.38 65.53 64.89
80 7.90 5.98 0.48 0.42 0.51 0.43 54.57 58.93
100 10.38 19.91 0.75 1.12 0.68 1.03 56.23 54.49
120 18.37 33.90 0.89 1.53 0.93 1.48 54.31 58.80
140 34.11 39.43 1.05 1.83 1.21 1.71 54.47 57.60
160 81.76 62.95 2.09 2.55 1.88 1.99 54.44 51.19

2. Test methodology adopted for static determination of fracture toughness

of PUR foams, in the absence of a specific standard for
2.1. Materials foams.
The static three point bend tests were performed on a
Investigations were performed on rigid polyurethane 2 kN MTS testing machine, Fig. 4. The specimens were
(PUR) foams of different densities 40, 80, 100, 120, 140 and subjected to uniaxial loading with a rate of 2 mm/min at
160 kg/m3. SEM images, obtained with QUANTA FEG 250, room temperature. The load - displacement curve was
show a close cell configuration with approximately uniform recorded and the force PQ for calculation of fracture
distribution: hexagonal for 40 kg/m3 density and spherical toughness was determined in accordance with standard
for the other densities, Fig. 2. D5045-99 [16].
Table 1 presents the compression properties of the The fracture toughness was calculated according to [16]:
foams under static (loading rate 2 mm/min for all densities)
and dynamic loading (1.28 m/s for 80, 120 and 140 kg/m3 PQ  
KIc ¼ f ða=WÞ; MPa m0:5 (1)
densities, respectively 0.94 m/s for 40, 100 and 160 kg/m3 BW 1=2
densities) [14,15]. where PQ is the calculation force in [N], B and W are
Single edge notch bend (SENB) specimens Fig. 3 were specimen dimensions in [mm]. The function f(a/W) is given
adopted for both static and dynamic tests, with thickness by [16]:

h i
2
pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi 1:99  ða=WÞð1  a=WÞ 2:15  3:93ða=WÞ þ 2:7ða=WÞ
f ða=WÞ ¼ 6 a=W : (2)
ð1 þ 2a=WÞð1  a=WÞ3=2

B ¼ 13 mm, width W ¼ 25 mm and span S ¼ 100 mm, apart 2.3. Dynamic tests
of the size effect investigations for static tests. Five speci-
mens were tested for each density. Tests were performed at The principle of impact and instrumented impact tests
room temperature 20  2  C. of plastic materials are given in EN ISO 179-2:2000 [18]
and Katthoff [19].
2.2. Static tests

A standard test method for plane strain fracture

toughness of plastic materials D5045-99 [16,17] was

Fig. 3. Single edge notched specimen for the three point bending tests. Fig. 4. Static testing machine MTS with maximum load of 2 kN.
676 L. Marsavina et al. / Polymer Testing 32 (2013) 673–680

A KB Pruftechnik pendulum (Germany) was used for the

instrumented impact tests, Fig. 5, with the following main
characteristics: pendulum mass 2.04 kg, pendulum length
0.386 m, drop height 0.742 m, drop angle 157.32 ,
pendulum energy 7.5 J, impact velocity 3.815 m/s. The tup
has a built-in electronic sensor which allows recording the
load with 1 MHz frequency. A four-channel data acquisition
A/D card (AdLink NuDAQ PCI-9812) was used for recording
the load in time, and then the load – displacement curve
was determined. A check for energy loses due to friction
was performed prior to testing and it was found that the
frictional loss was 0.059 J which represents 0.4% of the
nominal energy of the pendulum 14.847 J. This fulfils the
standard [18] condition that the energy loss due to friction
should be less than 1%. Tests were performed at room
temperature. Fig. 6. Typical load – displacement curve and energy variation from
Fig. 6 presents an example of load – displacement curve instrumented impact tests.
obtained for the PUR foam with 80 kg/m3 density during an
instrumented impact test. The total energy Wtot was ob- The dynamic fracture toughness was determined
tained by integration over the entire force – displacement following the same procedure as in the case of static tests
diagram. This energy should be the same from the impact using relations (1)–(2).
energy W, determined from the difference of the heights of
the striker before and after the test [19]. Also identified 3. Experimental results
were the energy for crack initiation Wini as the area below
force - displacement curve up to maximum force Fmax,and Fig. 7 presents SEM images from the initial notch surface
the energy corresponding to crack propagation Wprop rep- (7.a), and from the fractured surface (7.b) after static tests. It
resenting the energy after reaching the maximum force up could be seen from Fig. 7b that brittle fracture occurs in
to force decreasing to 0. Mode I, without any crushing and plastic deformation.
Fracture of cell walls could be identified as the mechanism
of fracture, while chevron marks are visible on the broken
cell wall.

3.1. Static test results

The load – displacement curves for the different den-

sities of PUR foams showed linear elastic behaviour, Fig. 8.
Prior to investigating the influence of different factors
on the fracture toughness of polyurethane foams, a size
effect study was performed in order to determine the
minimum width of the specimen required to fulfil the
linear elastic fracture mechanics conditions [20,21].
For the size effect investigations, specimens were cut
from the same plate with 40 kg/m3 density and had the
same thickness B ¼ 20 mm. Specimens were selected with
similar geometry, and with length-to-width ratio 5:2. Their
widths were W ¼ 5.33; 36.89 and 256 mm, with a variation
of span length S ¼ 13.33; 92.22 and 640 mm. A notch
having a length of 0.4W was cut with a blade of thickness of
0.6 mm [22].
The size effect is defined as the dependence of the
nominal strength, sN ¼ 3PmaxS/(2BW2), as function of the
characteristic specimen with W, and is best represented in a
plot of log (sN) versus log (W), presented in Fig. 9. If the
failure of the foam obeyed linear elastic fracture mechanics
(LEFM), the logarithmic size effect plot would have to be a
straight line with the slope 1/2 [20], shown dotted in
Fig. 9. A ductile behavior following the strength of material
approach with no size effect would be a horizontal line
sN ¼ sf, with sf tensile failure or plastic stress. The obtained
Fig. 5. The KB Pruftechnik pendulum used for the instrumented impact experimental results are asymptotic to these approaches
tests. having a form:
 L. Marsavina et al. / Polymer Testing 32 (2013) 673–680
Fig. 7. SEM images of the foam before testing (a.) and after static test (b.).
sN fsf ð1 þ W=WoÞ1=2 ; (3)
where Wo represents the transitional size. The transitional
size Wo could be obtained as the intersection point of the
LEFM asymptote and the strength of materials horizontal
line. For the investigated polyurethane foam, Wo z 10 mm
was obtained using a failure stress sf ¼ 0.46 MPa deter-
mined experimentally in tensile tests. For Wo > 10 mm, the
foam behavior is brittle, and the results are very close to the
asymptotic line from LEFM approach, which means that, on
the scale of the tests (and of course on larger scales cor-
responding to structures), the material behaves in an
almost brittle manner. For small specimens, a slight devi-
ation occurs and the scaling should be done according to
strength or plasticity approaches. The tests for fracture
toughness determination were performed on specimens
with W ¼ 25 mm > W0.
Density plays a major influence on the fracture tough-
ness of rigid polyurethane foams. Fig. 10 presents the re-
sults of fracture toughness versus density. It could be seen
that the fracture toughness increases with density from
0.03 MPa m0.5 for density of 40 kg/m3 to 0.21 MPa m0.5 for
160 kg/m3 density.
Fig. 8. Typical force-displacement curves from static tests of different
densities PUR foams.
677
The effect of loading direction was also investigated. For
densities of 40, 100 and 160 kg/m3, specimens were cut in
two directions (2) designated in plane and (3) out of plane,
Fig. 11a. Similar results of fracture toughness for low den-
sity foam (40 kg/m3) were obtained for both orientations
in-plane (2) KIc ¼ 0.0270 MPa m0.5 and out-of plane (3)
KIc ¼ 0.0274 MPa m0.5, with more scattered results for out of
plane tests, Fig. 11b. For higher densities, fracture tough-
ness results for direction (3) are higher, 15% for 100 kg/m3
density, and 5.4% for 160 kg/m3 density, Fig. 11b. This in-
dicates small anisotropic behaviour for higher density
foams.
3.2. Dynamic test results
Like for the static tests, the dynamic fracture toughness
KId increases with density, Fig. 12. The minimum value of
KId ¼ 0.066 MPa m0.5 corresponds to 40 kg/m3 density,
while the maximum value KId ¼ 0.293 MPa m0.5 was ob-
tained for the foam with 160 kg/m3 density.
Fig. 13 presents a comparison of the energies: impact
energy W, total energy Wtot, energy for crack initiation Wini
and energy for crack propagation Wprop for two densities
Fig. 9. Nominal strength versus width of SENB specimens.
678 L. Marsavina et al. / Polymer Testing 32 (2013) 673–680

(100 and 160 kg/m3) and two direction of applied load (in
plane and out of plane). As was expected, similar results
were obtained for impact energy W and total energy Wtot
for all investigated cases. The impact energy W and total
energy Wtot increases with density. Higher energy values
were obtained for out of plane loading compared with in
plane loading, 15.5% for 100 kg/m3 density and 4.5% for
160 kg/m3 indicating the anisotropic behaviour of foams.
The energy for crack initiation is similar for all cases
Wini ¼ 0.021  0.003 J, representing only 6 to 6.7% from the
total energy Wtot. The energy for crack propagation Wprop
varies with density and loading direction.

3.3. Comparison static - dynamic fracture toughness

Fig. 14 presents the results for dynamic and static

fracture toughness of the investigated foams. For each
Fig. 10. Static fracture toughness versus density.
density, the dynamic fracture toughness values are higher

Fig. 11. Influence of loading direction on static fracture toughness.

 L. Marsavina et al. / Polymer Testing 32 (2013) 673–680 679

Table 2
Static and dynamic fracture toughness results.

Density Fracture toughness [MPa m1.5]

Static Dynamic

Mean Standard Mean Standard

deviation deviation
40 0.032 0.004 0.066 0.0006
80 0.058 0.009 0.129 0.003
100 0.089 0.005 0.190 0.004
120 0.121 0.003 0.199 0.011
140 0.160 0.004 0.252 0.021
160 0.204 0.007 0.293 0.017

4. Conclusions
Fig. 12. Dynamic fracture toughness versus density.

Static three point bend tests and instrumented impact

Fig. 13. Variation of impact, total, initiation and propagation energies with
density and loading direction.
tests were performed on polyurethane foams of six
different densities, using single edge notch specimens. The
mean and standard deviation of the obtained fracture
toughness are summarised in Table 2. The main factor
influencing the static and dynamic fracture toughness is
the density, fracture toughness increase with increase of
foam density. The other parameter influencing the fracture
toughness is the loading direction, which indicated the
anisotropic behavior of the foams. The size effect was also
investigated in order to find the minimum width of the
specimens for fracture toughness determination.
From the instrumented impact tests, the total energy,
energy to crack initiation and energy for crack propagation
was identified for two different densities and loading
directions.
The fracture of PUR foams after static and impact three
point bending tests was quasi brittle, no plastic deforma-
tion remains after the test and no cushioning occurs during
tests, Fig. 7.

than the static fracture toughness values. A polynomial

correlation is proposed which could be useful for estima-
tion of dynamic fracture toughness if static fracture
toughness values are available in the considered density
range (40 to 160 kg/m3).
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the Romanian National
Authority for Scientific Research, CNCS – UEFISCDI grant
PN-II-ID-PCE-2011-3-0456, contract number 172/2011.
Tests were performed at Lubin University of Technology, in
the facilities of the Center of Excellence for Modern Com-
posites Applied in Aerospace and Surface Transport Infra-
structure (European Union Seventh Framework Programme
(FP7/2007 – 2013), FP7 - REGPOT – 2009 – 1, under grant
agreement No: 245479.

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