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Numerical Analysis of the Fracture Toughness of Low-Density Open-Cell Voronoi Foams

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Mechanics of Composite Materials Aims and scope

In this study, the geometry of open-cell foams is simulated using a model based on Voronoi tessellations. The fracture toughness of open-cell foams with Voronoi cells, including Mode-I, Mode-II, and the mixed-mode ones, are calculated by the finite-element method based on a micromechanical model. Cracks in the micromechanical model are created through removing some number of cells pertaining to the crack length. Displacement boundary conditions are applied to the boundary of a small region surrounding the crack tip, which are calculated based on the linear elastic fracture mechanics. The effects of relative density, disorder factor and sample size on the predicted elastic properties and fracture toughness of open-cell foams with Voronoi cells are discussed and compared with results available in the literature.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the National Science Foundation of China (Project No. 11502101) and the Jinling Institute of Technology Research Innovation Foundation, China (Project No. jit-b-201515). The authors are very grateful to the anonymous referee for providing a number of comments on their manuscript, which were very useful for improving the quality and presentation of the final paper.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Architectural Engineering, Jinling Institute of Technology, Nanjing, 211169, P.R. China

    J. E. Li

  2. Graduate School at Shenzhen, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, 150001, P.R. China

    B. L. Wang & S. L. Guo

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  1. J. E. Li
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  2. B. L. Wang
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  3. S. L. Guo
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Correspondence to J. E. Li.

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Russian translation published in Mekhanika Kompozitnykh Materialov, Vol. 54, No. 6, pp. 1137-1152, November-December, 2018.

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Li, J.E., Wang, B.L. & Guo, S.L. Numerical Analysis of the Fracture Toughness of Low-Density Open-Cell Voronoi Foams. Mech Compos Mater 54, 789–798 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11029-019-9783-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11029-019-9783-7

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