Al-Foam Compression Tests in Parallel and Serial Concepts

Abstract

Taking into consideration the additional weight of a vehicle, today’s requirements can only be met using new materials and designs. The application of metal foam is one of the most promising methods of enhancing the impact energy absorption ability of the crumple zone. The energy-absorbing capacity of thin-walled structures filled with metal foams during compression can be notably improved, which results in lower loading on the passengers. The main goal of our research is to develop a new design that is suited to absorb more impact energy while taking into consideration weight optimization. The authors wanted to unveil the effect of the inhomogeneous filler material in these thin-walled structures. Therefore, the present study investigates the compression test of two metal foams of different densities, in different ways. In the first section, the foams were compressed independently from each other by a recording of a stress–strain diagram. After the single compression, the foams were loaded together, first in parallel, and subsequently in a serial scheme. The study aimed to reveal the effect of the parallel and serial compression scheme focusing on the sum of impact energy absorption.