Study on quasi-static compressive properties of aluminum foam-epoxy resin composite structures

Closed cell aluminum foam (AF) has extensive application prospects due to its extended plateau stress region and high energy absorption capacity. As one of the most important manufacturing routes for aluminum foams, the gas injection method still does not guarantee an excellent energy absorption performance. In order to improve the energy absorption capacity while remaining the plateau region extended, epoxy resin (ER) was infiltrated into the aluminum foams in various composite forms. In this paper, different AF-ER composite structures were designed and their uniaxial quasi-static compressive behaviors were investigated. The experimental results indicate that the plateau stress and energy absorption capability of the AF-ER composite structures increase with increasing amount of epoxy resin. Additionally, both the stress fluctuation and the peak stress in the plateau region become insignificant, which is beneficial for energy absorption applications. The composite form is also confirmed to have great effect on the compressive property of the AF-ER composite structures. At last, the Young's modulus of the composite structure is theoretically deduced while the plateau stress and the energy absorption capacity are fitted with the composite parameters by considering the contribution of aluminum foam, epoxy resin and the reciprocity of these two materials. The present model is found to have good agreement with experimental data.