SHPB experiment research on dynamic property of expanded polystyrene foam

Dynamic compressive experiments for Expanded Polystyrene Sphere (EPS) foam materials have been carried out by using the Split Hopkinson Pressure Bar (SHPB) within the range of the mid-high strain rates from 320 s−1 to 1380 s−1. The wave separation technique used in the tests has been adopted to effectively enlarge the measurement range of stress-strain curve. Thereout, the integrated stress-strain curves that include the elastic stage, yield platform stage and densification stage are obtained at different strain rates. The stress-strain curves for the same kind of EPS foam obtained from experiments have a good repeatability. Experimental results show the deformation increases with the increasing of loading strain rate for the same density of EPS foam. The strain energy density decreases with the increasing of strain rate, but increases with the EPS density, which means that the abilities of energy absorption for unit volume EPS foam become weak with the increasing of strain rate. And the energy-absorption efficiency of EPS foam increases with the increasing of loading strain rate and EPS density.