Analysis and simulation of high strain compression of anisotropic open-cell elastic foams

By elongating the regular Kelvin model in one direction and keeping unchanged in the other two directions, the anisotropic model was constructed. Then, the simplified periodic structural cell was obtained according to the periodicity and symmetry of the model in the whole space. Using the half-strut element and elastic deflection theory to analyze the mechanical behavior as were adopted in the previous studies, this paper obtained the theoretical expressions for the compressive stress and strain as well as the corresponding curves in the rise and transverse directions. In addition, the theoretical results were examined by the finite element simulation. Results indicated that the theoretical analysis was very close to the finite element simulation when the strain was not too high, which confirmed the validity of theoretical analysis. At the same time, the anisotropy was shown to have a significant effect on the mechanical properties of open-cell foams. As the anisotropy ratio increased, the compressive stress was improved in the rise direction but dropped in the transverse direction under the same strain.