On thermal and strain-rate dependences of polymethacrylimide (PMI) foam materials

Polymethacrylimide (PMI) foams exhibit great potentials in engineering applications thanks to its outstanding lightweight and superior mechanical properties. However, the temperature and loading rate can greatly affect its mechanical behaviors, which are the key factors in analysis and design of the PMI foam structures for practical applications. Unfortunately, there is lack of fundamental data and constitutive models available concerning the elastic-plastic properties of the PMI foam in various stress states at different ambient temperatures and different strain rates. Therefore, this study aims to fill this knowledge gap by generating basic experimental data and providing a generic modeling solution for PMI foam materials and structures. To better reflect the actual service conditions in practice, different stress states are considered under different temperatures and strain rates. The cyclic loads are applied to characterize the actual mechanical responses of the PMI foam where the initial and subsequent yield surfaces were calibrated and analyzed. Following the experimental results, the elasticity, plasticity, viscosity and damage of the PMI foam are investigated thoroughly, especially for the initial and subsequent yielding behaviors. Further, the thermal and strain rate dependent constitutive models are established and calibrated based on the in-house experimental data for finite element (FE) modeling. A novel damage model is proposed to replicate the phenomenon of the stiffness degradation in compression. It is found that accurate predictions on the mechanical responses of PMI foam can be achieved under different temperatures and strain rates. This study is anticipated to provide fundamental experimental data and effective constitutive models of PMI foam for real engineering applications, such as lightweight design of sandwich structures under some harsh conditions.