Numerical simulation of static mechanical properties of PMMA microcellular foams

Abstract Inspired by recent advancements and owing to their low weight, flexible design, and acceptable cushioning and shock absorption, microcellular foams are being widely utilized in the automotive, helmet, aerospace, and transportation packaging fields. Herein, we research the relationship between the mechanical properties of microcellular foams and their meso-structure. This study combines static mechanical property tests with numerical simulations to analyze and predict the effects of different void porosities, cell sizes, and cell morphologies on the static compressive properties of polymethyl-methacrylate (PMMA) microcellular foams. It was determined that the void porosity of the foam had the most significant influence on the static compression performance. For foams with the same average cell size (7 ± 1 μm), the compressive strength increased by 144% (the void porosity was from 65% to 37%); for foams with the same void porosity (64 ± 1%), the compressive strength increased by 42% (the average cell size was from 21 μm to 8 μm). The cell morphology had the least influence on the static mechanical properties. The ellipsoidal cells had a superior compression performance compared to the spherical and the polyhedral cells; the compressive strength increased by 8.2%.