Quantification of impact energy dissipation capacity in metallic thin-walled hollow sphere foams using high speed photography

Quantification of energy dissipation capacity in metallic foams is required for their application in transport components subject to high velocity impact loads. In this study, in-situ high speed photography combined with in-house grid tracking codes was used to quantitatively investigate the impact behavior of electrodeposited nickel thin-walled hollow sphere foams in gas gun impact testing at an initial velocity of 60-140m s(-1). The energy dissipated by the foam varied almost linearly with the depth of impacted volume. The compressive plateau stress, which it is difficult to measure directly using conventional experiments, was then calculated for high impact loading velocity. It was found that both the energy dissipation capacity and average plateau strength increase with the initial impact velocity, which may suggest a rate dependency of the foam. (C) 2011 American Institute of Physics. [doi:10.1063/1.3647769]