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The influence of cell shape anisotropy on the tensile behavior of open-cell aluminium foam
In the previous chapter the role of the density and the microstructure on the mechanical response has been investigated for a fixed orientation of the long axis of the elliptical cells. This chapter is devoted to the change in tensile behavior for a change in the orientation of the long axis of the same open-cell foam. The measurements were carried out for the same relative density range and heat treatments as in the previous chapter.
7.1 Introduction
There are numerous processes for the fabrication of open- and closed-cell metal foams and some of these methods result in a strong anisotropy in cell shape. The mechanical properties of these specific foams, such as the stiffness, plateau stress and ultimate tensile strength (UTS) (see Fig. 7.1), also show anisotropy which is often linked to the cell shape [1,2,3,4,5]. Gibson and Ashby (G&A) constructed an analytical model to calculate the influence of the cell aspect ratio, i.e. the long cell axis divided by the short cell axis, on the mechanical properties. The model is based on the bending of short and long beams [6]. Also, other descriptions based on continuum approaches have been proposed [7,8,9]. Obviously, for an experimental validation an accurate experimental determination is important. In fact, X-ray tomography can be used to measure a large number of cells with high precision [10,11,12]. From the measured aspect ratio in the cell shape the anisotropy in the stiffness in tension was calculated in agreement with experiments [11]. In addition, by accounting for the anisotropy in plastic behavior the peak stress and strain have 81
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Figure 7.1 Stress-strain curve of two identical samples (AN, 6.1% relative density). The long axis of the elliptical cells was oriented longitudinal (LD) and transverse (TD) to the loading direction.
been predicted based on a critical strain criterion [9]. In these studies, however, the role of damage accumulation during straining has not been incorporated in the modeling, nor has it been quantitatively measured as a function of density. In Chapter 6 we have shown that damage accumulation starts well before the peak stress has been reached and that the onset and rate of damage evolution depends critically on the base material properties and the foam s relative density. The ability of the foam to accommodate the applied strain by strut bending and reorientation was identified as an important mechanism responsible for the large peak strain at small densities. The goal of this chapter is to study the effect of cell shape anisotropy in light of these mechanisms. We start by relating the yield stress to the cell orientation at small strains, followed by a study of the damage evolution at large strain by measuring the electrical resistance in-situ.
The influence of cell shape anisotropy on the tensile behavior of open-cell foam
relative density of each sample was calculated by measuring the mass and dividing it by the volume and the mass of pure Al (2.7 g/cm3). The samples were received in the annealed (AN) condition (3 hrs at 412C, followed by slow cooling to 260C and maintaining that temperature for 0.5 hr followed by slow cooling to RT). Some of the samples were subjected to an additional precipitation hardening heat treatment (HT) to increase the yield stress. First the samples were exposed to a solid solution heat treatment (527C for 8 hrs), followed by quenching in RT water. After 16 hours at RT, the samples were artificially aged for 8 hrs at 177C, followed by cooling inside the furnace. Four samples were T6 heat treated, this heat treatment is equal to the HT heat treatment but with the exception that the samples are directly artificially aged for 8 hrs at 177C after the water quench, instead of after 16 hrs at RT. Table 6.1 shows the mechanical properties in tension of the Al alloy for the AN and HT heat treatments (see Chapter 6). The samples were machined with electro-discharging into a dog bone shape. The area of the reduced section was 25 x 25 mm2 and the length was 60 mm; the total length of the sample was 100 mm. The long axis of the cells was oriented longitudinal (LD) and transverse (TD) to the loading direction. The dog bone shaped foam samples were glued to aluminium T-bars using an epoxy glue (Araldite 2011) produced by Vantico. The tensile tests were performed using an MTS 810 servohydraulic testing machine with a 10 kN load cell and were executed under displacement control at a rate of 0.7 mm/min. The strain was measured using a video extensometer of MessPhysik and the markers were placed at the beginning and the end of the reduced section. The strain hardening exponent n of the foam, nf, was obtained by fitting a power-law relation ( = K ) to the data points of the stress-true strain curve lying between the yield stress and 1.5% true strain. The aspect ratio of the cells was measured using a PEAK magnifier with a 0.05 mm accuracy. Backlighting provided good measurability and the short and long axis was measured for 40 cells for five different samples (200 in total).
f
7.2.2 Electrical resistance measurement During the tensile tests the electrical resistance was monitored using a modified 4-point measurement. A 3A current ran through the sample, produced by a Keithley 2601 system source meter. The electrodes were connected to the T-bars and silver paste was used to provide a uniform entry of the current from the T-bars into the foam. The polarity of the current was alternating with a frequency of 1 Hz to eliminate thermocouple effects. The resistance was measured with a Keithley 2182 83
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nanovoltmeter using two electrodes at the beginning and two electrodes at the end of the reduced section. This was done to eliminate possible potential gradients over the thickness of the sample due to the complex nature of the current and electric field within the foam structure. The markers for the video extensometer were placed on top of the electrodes. The T-bars were isolated from the testing machine using plastic sheets. Aluminium foam is electrically conductive and the removal of a strut decreases the conductivity. For random 3D resistor networks the change in resistance due to the removal of individual resistors scales linearly with the total number of resistors removed until the removal of about 20% of the total number of resistors [13,14]. To verify if this claim holds for an open-cell foam, with a regular cell shape and nonuniform strut profile, the resistance of dog bone shaped samples was measured while struts were randomly removed one after another. The struts were located at the surface or at a depth of one cell underneath the surface and were spread over three sides of the reduced section of the sample. The long axis of the cells was parallel (LD) to the length of the sample. For solid metals the electrical resistance also changes during a tensile test due to a change in geometry, i.e. the decreasing cross-sectional area and the increasing length of the specimen. This change in geometry also occurs during the uniaxial straining of an Al foam sample, but the resistance does not simply depend on the macroscopic Poisson s ratio. The change in resistance has to result from the change in resistance on the mesoscopic length scale, i.e. the stretching and the decrease in cross-sectional area of the struts. In open-cell foams the overall deformation results from both bending and uniaxial stretching of struts. Since bending will not reduce the cross-sectional area, it will not change the resistance, while its contribution to the overall strain is considerable (see Chapter 6). To account for these mesoscopic mechanisms, here a phenomenological parameter q is introduced according to:
R = e q . R0
(7.1)
The parameter q was determined for each sample by fitting Eq. 7.1 to the resistance measurement at small strains. To calculate the change in resistance due to damage at higher strain, the measured change in resistance was normalized to the value predicted by Eq. 7.1.
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The influence of cell shape anisotropy on the tensile behavior of open-cell foam
7.3 Results
Fig. 7.2 shows the peak strain as a function of the relative density for the AN and HT samples. Similar to what has been reported in Refs. [1,2,4,11] the peak strain of the samples loaded transverse to the tensile direction (TD) is larger compared to the longitudinal direction (LD). This trend holds for all the densities and heat treatments. Fig. 7.3 shows the 0.2% offset yield stress as a function of the relative density. The ratio between the yield stress of the LD and TD samples is obtained from the ratio between the proportionality constants of the fit of the plastic G&A scaling law through the data points. For the AN samples this results in a ratio of 1.5, but the HT samples could not be fitted properly. Depending on which density range is fitted best, the ratio for the HT samples is between 1.6 and 2.5. The yield stress ratio obtained in compression is 1.56 for both heat treatments (see Chapter 8). The measured aspect ratio of the cell shape is 1.430.15. This is very close to the value of 1.420.12 obtained by 3D x-ray tomography in Ref. [12]. According to the G&A model an aspect ratio in cell shape of 1.43 should result in an anisotropy in the yield stress of 1.68 [6]. This is very close to the measured anisotropy in tension and compression and therefore it is concluded that the anisotropy in the yield stress between the TD and LD is due to the anisotropy in the cell shape. As can be observed from the scale of Figs. 7.3a and 7.3b, there is a large difference between the yield stress of the AN and the HT samples for the medium and high density samples. For those relative densities, the yield stress of the HT samples is at least twice that of the AN samples for both orientations LD and TD and the difference is comparable to the ratio between the yield stress of the base materials (see also Chapter 8). However, for the low density samples there is no difference between the yield stresses of both heat treatments (see Fig. 7.4). To investigate this further, a solid tensile test sample (see Chapter 6) and four foam samples were given a T6 heat treatment to increase the yield stress of the base material. The yield stress of the T6 solid tensile test sample was 190 MPa, which is an increase of 1.53 compared to the yield stress of the HT solid tensile test samples. The composition of the alloy of the low density samples is the same as the medium density samples (see Chapter 6) and the heat treatment was performed simultaneously with the T6 solid tensile test sample. Nano-indentations on struts of the low density T6 and HT foam samples resulted in a hardness ratio of 1.43. This indicates that the yield stress of the base material of the low density T6 foam samples has increased compared to the low density HT and AN foam samples, but the yield stress of the foam has not increased. The peak strains of the low density samples are also comparable for 85
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(a)
(b)
Figure 7.2 Peak strain vs. the relative density of LD (closed triangle) and TD (open triangle) samples for (a) AN and (b) HT.
(a)
(b)
Figure 7.3 0.2% offset yield stress vs. the relative density of LD (closed triangle) and TD (open triangle) samples for (a) AN and (b) HT.
different heat treatments, which is also in contrast to the results on the medium and high density samples. Fig. 7.5 shows the strain hardening exponent of the foam as a function of the density and the heat treatment. The strain hardening exponent of the foam is independent of the orientation of the long axis and the density for the AN samples. For the high density HT samples, the hardening is slightly lower for both orientations. The value in TD is the same as in LD and therefore the strain hardening exponent of the foam is also independent of the cell orientation for the 86
The influence of cell shape anisotropy on the tensile behavior of open-cell foam
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
Figure 7.4 The 0.2% offset yield stress vs. the density for two orientations: (a) LD and (b) TD and the peak strain vs. the density for two orientations: (c) LD and (d) TD. The samples were subjected to three different heat treatments: closed squares-AN, closed triangles-HT and open triangles-T6 (for details see text).
HT samples. Since the strain hardening exponent of the foam is the same in each direction, the shape of the LD and TD curves are the same until damage is introduced. The strain hardening exponents of the two T6 LD samples are 0.27 and 0.28, for the two T6 TD samples they are 0.27 and 0.31. The strain hardening exponent of the solid tensile test sample with comparable alloy composition, which was heat treated simultaneously, is 0.08 (failure strain is 8.0%). As expected for a random network, the resistance scales linearly with the total number of struts removed up to at least 3.3% of the total number of struts (more struts could not be removed randomly from the surface). Fig. 7.6 shows the relative 87
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(a)
(b)
Figure 7.5 Strain hardening exponent of the LD (closed triangle) and TD (open triangle) foam samples vs. the relative density for (a) AN and (b) HT. The stress-true strain curves of the AN samples were fitted from the yield stress to 1.5% true strain. The stress-true strain curves of the HT LD samples were fitted to 0.6% true strain, because most HT LD samples had extensive damage before 1.5% true strain. The low density HT LD samples were fitted to both 0.6% and 1.5% true strain to bridge the 0.6% and 1.5% values.
resistance, normalized by Eq. 7.1 to yield the change in resistance due to damage, as a function of the strain and plotted until the peak strain. These relative resistance curves are correlated to the total damage in the sample. Comparison of Fig. 7.6a with 7.6c shows that the onset strain is the same, but that the rate of damage accumulation is lower for most TD samples compared with the LD samples of the same density. In addition, the final relative resistance at failure is slightly higher for most TD samples (especially at medium densities). The same observations holds for the HT samples, when Fig. 7.6b is compared to Fig. 7.6d: the onset strain of the TD samples is the same as for the LD samples, but the rate of damage accumulation is lower for most TD samples compared with the LD samples of the same density. The final TD relative resistance is somewhat higher for all samples compared with the LD samples of the same density. These observations suggest that the increase in peak strain is caused by a decrease in damage accumulation and an increase in the tolerance (final relative resistance at failure). In Chapter 6 we have correlated these observations to an increased contribution of strut bending to the overall deformation, quantified by q (see Eq. 7.1). Fig. 7.7 shows the q-value as a function of the density for the LD and TD samples. The qvalue is independent of the heat treatment and therefore the difference between the AN and HT samples has not been indicated. Clearly, for each density the q-value of the TD samples is lower than for the LD samples. 88
The influence of cell shape anisotropy on the tensile behavior of open-cell foam
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
Figure 7.6 Relative resistance due to damage vs. the overall strain for different types of samples: (a) AN, LD (b) HT, LD (c) AN, TD (d) HT, TD. The color represents the low (45%, blue), medium (6-7%, red) or high (10-13%, green) density range. The measured relative resistance was normalized to the value predicted by Eq. 7.1 to yield the relative resistance due to damage. The relative resistance is plotted until the peak strain. Most data of the high density HT, LD samples are left out due to an error in the resistance measurement.
7.4 Discussion
As predicted by the G&A anisotropy unit cell model, the bending deformation increases when the long axis of the cell is oriented perpendicular to the loading direction (i.e. TD), which leads to a lower stiffness and yield stress (see Figs. 7.1 and 7.3). The ratio between the yield stress for the LD and TD samples can be predicted correctly based on the G&A model using the measured cell shape. The 89
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Figure 7.7 Initial slope of the resistance measurement, q, vs. the density for the LD (closed triangles) and TD (open triangles) samples. The parameter q was acquired by fitting the initial part of the relative resistance measurement with Eq. 7.1 and is independent of the heat treatment.
increase in bending deformation of the struts is indicated by a decrease in the value of q. An important effect of the increase in bending deformation is the decrease in damage accumulation, so that the peak strain of the TD samples is larger than that of the LD samples. Since the hardening is independent of the cell orientation, the stress-strain curves in Fig. 7.1 coincide at small strains when the stress is normalized by the yield stress. Consequently, since the LD peak strain is smaller, the ratio between the peak stress in LD and TD has become smaller than the ratio between the yield stresses.
7.5 Conclusion
The change in mechanical response, by re-orienting the long axis of the cell from longitudinal to transverse to the loading axis, can be summarized as follows. At small strains, the stiffness and yield stress decreases, which is a direct consequence of the anisotropy in the cell shape. The strain hardening, however, remains unaffected by cell orientation. At large strains, a higher peak strain is achieved due to a decrease in damage accumulation which can be attributed to a relative increase in bending deformation. An important consequence of the cellshape dependent damage evolution is that the dependence of the peak stress ratio on cell shape is less pronounced than the yield stress ratio. 90
The influence of cell shape anisotropy on the tensile behavior of open-cell foam
References
McCullough KYG, Fleck NA, Ashby MF. Acta Mater 1999;47;2323. Andrews E, Sanders W, Gibson LJ. Mater Sci Eng A 1999;270;113. Olurin OB, Fleck NA, Ashby MF. Mater Sci Eng A 2000;291;136. Badiche X, Forest S, Guibert T, Bienvenu Y, Bartout J-D, Ienny P, Croset M, Bernet H. Mater Sci Eng A 2000;289;276. 5. Nieh TG, Higashi K, Wadsworth J. Mater Sci Eng A 2000;283;105. 6. Gibson LJ, Ashby MF. Cellular Solids, Structure & Properties (Pergamon Press, 1st ed.1988). 7. Kitazono K, Sato E, Kuribayashi K. Acta Mater 2003;51;4823. 8. Tane M, Ichitsubo T, Hirao M, Nakajima H. Mech Mater 2007;39;53. 9. Dillard T, Forest S, Ienny P. Eur J Mech A-Solids 2006;25;526. 10. Benouali A-H, Froyen L, Dillard T, Forest S, N Guyen F. J Mater Sci 2005;40;5801. 11. Dillard T, N' Guyen F, Maire E, Salvo L, Forest S, Bienvenu Y, Bartout JD, Croset M, Dendievel R, Cloetens P. Phil Mag 2005;85;2147. 12. Perrot C, Panneton R, Olny X. J Appl Phys 2007;101;113538. 13. Batrouni GG, Kahng B, Redner S. J Phys A 1988;21;23. 14. Redner S, Brooks JS. J Phys A 1982;15;605. 1. 2. 3. 4.
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