Publications

Cyclic loading experiment for characterizing foam viscoelastic behavior

Lu, Wei-Yang L.; Neidigk, Matthew N.; Wyatt, Nicholas B.

Several open-cell flexible foams, including aged polyurethane foams, were mechanically characterized over a temperature range of 40 to 20 °C. Quasi-static compression was performed to obtain the stress-strain behavior of the foams. The stress-strain relation is nonlinear, but typically there is a small range of linear behavior initially. Compressive cyclic loading at different amplitudes and frequencies of interest (20–60 Hz) were applied to measure foam’s hysteresis properties, i.e. stiffness and energy dissipation. The cyclic characterization includes foams with different amount of pre-strains, some are beyond the initial linear range as occurred in many applications.