Wednesday  |  Carnegie III  |  11:30 AM–11:50 AM

#13743, Thermoviscoelastic Characterization of an Open-cell Polyurethane Foam

Porous polymeric foams have gained a wide range of applications in engineering fields due to their low density, excellent mechanical and thermal properties. While previous work has begun to characterize the general finite deformation, nonlinear viscoelastic response of these foams, little work has investigated the finite deformation behavior as a function of ambient temperature. In this study, we characterize an open-cell polyurethane foam using a combination of uniaxial tension and compression experiments at engineering strain rates of 10-2 s-1, 10-1 s-1, and 1 s-1 at ambient temperatures of -20°C, 0 °C and 25 °C (room temperature) and 50 °C. Cyclic compressive loadings are applied to obtain viscoelastic hysteresis under the same temperatures and strain rates. Tension and compression show distinct stress-strain behavior due to the different deformation mechanisms, which is referred as the tension/compression asymmetry. Finally, these measurements are utilized to inform the development of advanced finite deformation, thermoviscoelastic constitutive models.

Xiangyu Sun   University of Wisconsin Madison
Jialiang Tao   University of Wisconsin Madison
David Henann   Brown University
Christian Franck   University of Wisconsin Madison