A numerical study on the rate sensitivity of cellular metals

Metallic foams have non-linear deformation behavior, which make them attractive in many applications. Many experimental researches on the dynamic behavior and rate sensitivity of cellular metals have been reported in the literature, but they contain conflicting, and sometimes confusing, conclusions on the strain-rate and inertia effect of cellular metals. In this paper, the dynamic crushing behavior of 2D Voronoi honeycomb is studied by finite element method. The influences of inertia, strain hardening and strain-rate hardening of metal matrix on the deformation mode and plateau stress of the honeycomb are investigated. Three deformation modes are found in different velocity ranges. According to the numerical results, it is found that the plateau stress increases significantly with the increase of impact velocity due to non-uniform deformation induced by inertia. The strain-hardening effect is slight in our numerical tests and the rate effect of the honeycomb is obviously weaker than that of the cell wall material.