Materials and Design 118 (2017) 11–21

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Materials and Design

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/matdes

Macro and micro collapse mechanisms of closed-cell aluminium foams

during quasi-static compression
M.A. Kader a, M.A. Islam a, M. Saadatfar b,⁎, P.J. Hazell a, A.D. Brown a, S. Ahmed a, J.P. Escobedo a,⁎
a
School of Engineering and Information Technology, The University of New South Wales, Canberra ACT 2600, Australia
b
Department of Applied Mathematics, Australian National University (ANU), Canberra ACT-0200, Australia

H I G H L I G H T S G R A P H I C A L A B S T R A C T

• The X-ray computed tomography based

FE simulations for closed-cell alumini-
um foams agrees well with experimen-
tal results.
• The variation of cell-walls strength
dominates the collapse process over
pore shape and size distribution.
• The plateau borders are able to carry
more load and undergo less deforma-
tion compared to cell-walls during de-
formation.
• Significant amounts of lateral strain oc-
cur at cellular level although the global
deformation at lower strains is negligi-
ble.

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The pore collapse mechanisms of closed-cell aluminium foams during quasi-static compression have been
Received 26 October 2016 investigated. A suite of experiments and numerical simulations were carried out to elucidate the deforma-
Received in revised form 11 December 2016 tion pathways of individual pores during quasi-static compressive loading. X-ray computed tomography
Accepted 7 January 2017
was utilized to generate 3D views of the foams before and after deformation. The tomography based
Available online 09 January 2017
foam geometry was imported into the finite element software ABAQUS/Explicit for simulations. The results
Keywords:
showed that the simulations accurately reproduced the experimentally observed yielding and post yield-
Closed-cell foam ing behaviour of the foams. As expected, pores with thin cell-walls were observed to deform at faster
X-ray tomography rates both experimentally and in simulations. The simulations aided to reveal the complex deformation
Finite element modelling evolution of cell-walls and junctions (plateau borders) during compression. While the cell-walls experi-
Microstructure enced bending, buckling and rotation by forming hinges; the plateau borders experienced considerably
Pore collapse mechanism less deformation. The thickness/strength of cell-walls and topological foams' heterogeneities are observed
as the governing factors for collapse. Significant lateral strain is observed at the cell level, although the bulk
lateral strain was negligible. Finally, it was also observed that the micro-pores and cracks present within
the cell-walls contribute to their deformation.
© 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

⁎ Corresponding authors.
E-mail addresses: mohammad.saadatfar@anu.edu.au (M. Saadatfar), J.Escobedo-Diaz@adfa.edu.au (J.P. Escobedo).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.matdes.2017.01.011
0264-1275/© 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
12 M.A. Kader et al. / Materials and Design 118 (2017) 11–21

Fig. 1. Experimental set-up of quasi-static compression.

1. Introduction assumes the foams to yield homogeneously, which is in contradic-

Closed-cell aluminium foams have a wide range of applications due
to their high strength-to-weight ratio and good energy absorption ca-
pacity. These outstanding properties make them attractive for various
applications in aviation, automotive, defence engineering as well as per-
sonal protective devices [1–7]. Aluminium foams show three different
zones in their stress-strain compression curves. After initial yielding,
they exhibit a plateau stress before densification. A long plateau is desir-
able in energy absorbing applications, wherein the foams deform with
almost constant stress [8–10]. The size of this important regime signifi-
cantly relies on the foam density [11] and is inherently associated with
the cell collapse mechanisms [12,13]. Although a considerable number
of experimental studies have been conducted on closed-cell aluminium
foams [14–18], most of the previous works have focused on their global
response rather than the deformation mechanisms at the cell level. A
few research groups have investigated the surface micrographs and
2D CT slices of deformed sample to understand the deformation
mechanisms [8,12,13]. In addition to experiments, finite element
modelling has been used to validate experimental results and
carry out in depth analysis [19,20]. However, for complex structural
deformation analyses, an accurate geometry is vital to the success of
the numerical modelling and considerably less attention has been
given to accurate cell-geometry based finite element analyses. Con-
tinuum geometry with crushable foam materials modelling [21]
tion with actual foam deformation [22,23]. That is, the crushable
foam constitutive material model does not consider the local cell
collapse mechanism and consequently cannot reproduce the defor-
mation properly [22]. This is the inevitable limitation of a continu-
um approach for complex cellular materials. Nevertheless, a few
research groups have investigated a foam's deformation using cells
with homogeneous shapes [24,25]. Kadkhodapour and Raeisi [26]
studied the deformation behaviour of closed-cell aluminium foams
with regular cell shapes and reported that the topology had a signif-
icant effect on their mechanical behaviour. Some previous studies
have imaged different materials with X-ray CT to investigate topo-
logical [7,27–32] and bulk mechanical [33–37] properties rather
than the collapse mechanisms. Hangai et al. [38] have used the x-
ray CT of deformed samples at different strains to understand the
deformation behaviour of foams. They also carried out a FE model
with linear elastic material behaviour to predict deformation initia-
tion through observing the high-stress region [39]. However, the de-
formation evolution of the entire volume including the collapse
mechanisms of each individual pore at any particular instant is
still ambiguous to date. Jirousek et al. [40] investigated the deforma-
tion behaviour of closed-cell metal foams with x-ray tomography at
very low strains which is not able to explain the collapse mechanisms.
The parent material of foams usually contains substantial amounts of
ceramic particles that significantly contribute to material behaviour

Fig. 2. X-ray microtomography images of (a) raw data and (b) after using Anisotropy Diffusion and Unsharp Musk filters.
 M.A. Kader et al. / Materials and Design 118 (2017) 11–21 13

Fig. 3. Meso-scale FE modelling assembly and developed foam geometry with some interiors.

[41]. However, the properties of pure aluminium have been used in
most of the previous research [33,42].
In this research, quasi-static compression experiments have been
conducted on closed-cell aluminium foams. X-ray computed tomogra-
phy has been used to image the samples before and after compression.
Advanced 3D image analysis has been performed on tomography based
reconstructed geometries to investigate topological information and the
collapse mechanism. Tomography based FE simulations have been car-
ried out in ABAQUS/explicit. Accurate base materials properties have
been used from the author's previous works on micro-tensile tests of
cell-walls [41]. The deformation mechanism of bulk foams, cell-walls,
plateau borders as well as others important features of the foam's struc-
ture relevant to large strain values have also been explored experimen-
tally and numerically.
2. Materials and methods
2.1. Materials
The closed-cell aluminium foams (CYMAT™) with a nominal density
of 0.5 g/cm3 used in this study have the same pedigree as the ones used
in our previous studies [6,11,43]. The heterogeneous pore size and

Fig. 4. Meso-scale FE modelling assembly and developed foam geometry.

14 M.A. Kader et al. / Materials and Design 118 (2017) 11–21

Fig. 5. Micro CT slice of closed-cell aluminium foam before compression.

shape distributions have been previously reported in Ref. [11,43]. The
micro-tensile response of the cell-walls has recently been reported
[41]. It was observed that the cell-wall materials consist of eutectic Al-
Si and dendritic α-Al with irregular distribution of micro-pores,
micro-cracks and intermetallic phases and particles with trace amounts
of Si, O, Fe and Ti. The mechanical properties of the cell-walls: Yield
strength, 135 ± 13 MPa; elastic modulus, 10 ± 3 GPa and ultimate ten-
sile strength 200 ± 30 MPa.
2.2. Experimental
Quasi-static compression experiments were carried out in a
Shimadzu® universal testing machine (Fig. 1). Specimens with dimen-
sion 40 mm × 40 mm × 23 mm were prepared by electro discharge ma-
chining (EDM) to avoid cell-wall distortion. Uniaxial compression
loading was applied with a cross-head velocity of 1.44 mm/min
(10− 3 s−1) at room temperature. The foams were compressed up to
densification zones to explore the collapse mechanisms. The stress-
strain response was calculated by measuring the displacement of the
platens and the foams' reaction forces. The foam's deformation was
also captured with a high speed camera.
2.3. Micro-CT procedures
The experimental specimen was imaged via non-destructive x-ray
computed micro-tomography before and after deformation by using
the micro-CT facility at the Australian National University (ANU). A
flat panel detector (pixel size 0.14 μm) and micro-focus X-ray source
(acceleration voltage 100 kV and current 100 μA) both supplied by Ha-
mamatsu (Japan), were used for imaging. The foam specimen was
placed on a motor controlled rotating stage and radioscopic projections
were taken after each degree of rotation. In total, around 10,000 projec-
tions were obtained for a complete rotation of the foam. The exposition
time was 4 s and two images per projection were averaged to reduce the
noise. The total imaging time was approximately 22 h for each sample.
The X-ray source has a cone beam geometry which allowed magnifica-
tion as a result we achieved the voxel resolution of 39 μm. The raw
tomography images were processed in Medial Axis and Network
Generation (Mango), a software tool developed at Australian Na-
tional University, to acquire suitable geometry for the numerical
simulations. Anisotropy Diffusion (AD) and Unsharp Musk (UM) fil-
ters available in Mango have been used to clean the raw tomograph-
ic images. Fig. 2 (a-b) shows a CT slice before and after using these
filters. Then the grey scale projections of X-ray computed micro-
tomography were transferred to binary images by using Segmenta-
tion in Mango tool.
A high resolution (voxel resolution 1.8 μm) X-ray computed micro
tomography of a cell-wall (2 mm × 1 mm × 0.1 mm) was performed
to investigate its interior in detail (Fig. 8). To achieve higher magnifica-
tion, the specimen was positioned closure to the X-ray source. The dis-
tance between the specimen and source was set to 5.45 mm and the
camera was placed 410 mm apart from the x-ray source.

Fig. 6. Experimentally deformed sample for different strains.

 M.A. Kader et al. / Materials and Design 118 (2017) 11–21 15

Fig. 7. X-ray computed tomography based reconstructed foam geometry before and after 25% compression with details interior collapse mechanisms of cell-walls and plateau border.

Fig. 8. (a) X-ray computed tomography based reconstructed cell-wall geometry (b) cell-wall's interior thin slice showing micro pores and cracks.
16 M.A. Kader et al. / Materials and Design 118 (2017) 11–21
2.4. Numerical
In the present simulation a block of 15 mm × 15 mm × 8 mm with-
out any structural defects was carefully selected with mango software
tool and meshed for finite element simulations. Jeon and Asahina [44]
demonstrated that a small block of closed-cell aluminium foam without
structural defects is capable of exhibiting the stress-strain behaviour
identical to that of the bulk foam. Moreover, a number of research
groups [33,45–48] concluded that, it is possible to numerically analyse
the small specimen to investigate the deformation and collapse mecha-
nism of bulk foam. The finite element software ABAQUS/Explicit was
used for the present numerical analysis. The elastic-plastic material
model was used to assign the material behaviour. The properties were
taken from the micro-tensile test data of cell-walls reported in our re-
cent study [41]. The parameters used were 2700 kg/m3, 8 GPa and 0.3
for the density, Young modulus and Poisson's ratioPoisson's ratio.n, re-
spectively. The strain hardening properties were also calculated from
the test results [41].
Adaptive meshing based on curvature was used to generate a good
quality mesh. It is an in-house developed C++ codes that usage CGAL
Fig. 9. X-ray computed tomography based reconstructed geometry with the horizontal section at maximum compressed zone. Movement of cell-walls through lateral directions
(perpendicular to loading direction) is noticed.
(The Computational Geometry Algorithm Library) for generating mesh
from segmented tomography data. Then the x-ray tomography based
generated mesh is to be imported to ABAQUS. Tetrahedral elements
(C3D4) were used to mesh the complex geometry of the foam. The
total number of elements was 2,063,373. This number of elements
were compared with similar studies in the literature [33,34,46] and
comparatively, this mesh is relatively fine and above the maximum re-
quired for convergence. The FE assembly and the developed digital foam
geometry with some of its interiors are shown in Fig. 3. Two steel plates
were modelled as top and bottom platen using 8 node hexahedral ele-
ments (C3D8R). All degrees of freedom were constrained for top and
bottom platens except the movement of top platen in the vertical direc-
tion. A vertical displacement was imposed to the top platen. A general
contact option was used for interactions between the platens and
foam and for all interior surfaces of foam structure. Abaqus/Explicit soft-
ware was used to carry out the quasi-static simulation because of the
chaotic structure of closed-cell foam that leads to a complex deforma-
tion [49]. However, the displacement rate in the quasi-static compres-
sion was comparatively low for an explicit solver. Therefore, mass
scaling was applied to reduce the solution time. To ensure that the
 M.A. Kader et al. / Materials and Design 118 (2017) 11–21 17

simulation produced quasi-static response, the ratio of kinetic energy to
total energy was not allowed to exceed 5% throughout the time history
output [50,51].
3. Results and discussions
A comparison between computational modelling and experimental
stress-strain result for quasi-static compression is shown in Fig. 4. The
stress-strain curve does not follow a typical pattern of ideal foam behav-
iour with strict plastic and densification regions. Notably, the plateau
stress and densification stress in this test for the higher density foams
(0.5 g/cm3) are not clearly distinct as is found other low density foams
[11,52]. The plastic collapse and densification simultaneously progress
after initial yielding. A reasonably good agreement is observed between
experimental result and FE simulation for each stage of compression.
with some interiors.
3.1. Structural deformation during compression - Experimental approach
The structures of closed-cell foams are complex in nature and consist
of solid cell-walls, plateau borders/junctions and voids. The CT slice of
the experimental sample before compression is shown in Fig. 5.
The larger size pores with thin cell-walls form relatively weak zones,
whereas smaller size pores with thick cell-walls form relatively stronger
zones. The experimentally compressed foams during quasi-static load-
ing at different strain values are shown in Fig. 6.
The compressed sample (25% compressed) has been investigated
with X-ray computed tomography and 3D image analyses with Drishti
(Volume Exploration and Presentation Tool) [53]. To elucidate the
structural deformation mechanisms at foams interior, the reconstructed
foam is observed at different sections by removing layers with Drishti.
An interior section, ABCD (through thickness) is shown in Fig. 7 for
explanation. It is observed that the maximum amount of pore collapse
occurs at relatively weak zones (previously observed in Fig. 5) where

Fig. 10. Deformation mechanism of closed-cell aluminium foam for quasi-static compression with meso-scale modelling at different bulk strains.
18 M.A. Kader et al. / Materials and Design 118 (2017) 11–21
larger sizes pores with thin cell-walls were noticed before loading. Song
et al. [54] carried out an in-situ compressive test within a SEM and
observed that the collapse starts predominantly at larger cells. Other re-
search groups [8,12] concluded that the pore shape is more responsible
than size in determining collapse preference. However, the surface ob-
servations and in-situ SEM experiments can give only the 2D informa-
tion relevant to the cross section being imaged. The present 3D (with
Drishti) observation shows that the cell-wall thickness is more impor-
tant than cell shape and size to undergo permanent deformation. Exam-
ining Fig. 7 (a) where two similar pores are highlighted, one can see that
the top pore has a thicker wall than the lower pore but is compressed
less. Thus applies that the thickness of the wall is of principle impor-
tance. The high resolution (1.8 μm) x-ray computed micro tomography
of a cell-wall with interior thin slice is shown in Fig. 8(a)–(b). The top
and bottom surface layers of the cell-wall have been removed with
Drishti (Volume Exploration and Presentation Tool) software to observe
the interior micro-structure (Fig. 8 (b)). Numerous amounts of micro
pores and cracks are identified. The interior micro-pores, cracks and in-
homogeneity of material distribution at cell-walls possibly lead to stress
concentration which may significantly affect the collapse initiation and
propagation.
It is observed from Fig. 7 (b–c) that the deformed cell-walls move to-
wards the nearby pore spaces and subsequently curled depending on
the shape of voids and transmitted load that susceptible on it. The en-
larged view P shown in Fig. 7 (c) shows that the top wall of pores
moves towards the voids by forming hinges at weaker positions. It is
also noticed that the plateau border (junction point) remains almost
Fig. 11. Interior deformation observation to show the lateral movement of cell wall with transverse slice.
undeformed with a little bending of its tributaries. The enlarged view
Q (from maximum deformation zone) shows that the cell-walls under-
go bending, buckling, tearing and fracture.
A transverse section of the foam's X-ray tomography shown in Fig. 9
has also been observed to explore lateral deformation mechanisms. The
enlarge view taken from the maximum collapse zone shows that the
collapsed cell-walls (from sides and top) occupied the neighboring
voids which lead to negligible lateral strain in global level in spite of sig-
nificant lateral strain at cell level. The movements of adjacent cell-walls
in a confined space develop frictions (shows in Fig. 9) which may have a
major contribution to energy absorption.
Although it is possible to understand overall deformation mecha-
nisms through experimental observations and the 3D image analyses
of compressed sample, the onset of collapse at any pore and the details
of interior cell collapse process with time are difficult to explain. How-
ever, numerical simulation based on an X-ray CT geometry is able to
show any cross section at any time increment. It is also able to produce
a continuous stress-strain curve and a complete microstructural
evolution. Thus, for exploring the details of cell collapse mecha-
nisms, finite element simulations with X-ray CT based geometry
have been carried out in the present study and described in the
numerical approach.
3.2. Numerical analysis of pore collapse
A vertical interior section of the digital geometry has been investi-
gated to explore the internal deformation mechanisms. The deformed
 M.A. Kader et al. / Materials and Design 118 (2017) 11–21 19

states of this particular section are shown in Fig. 10 at different strains.
The stress-strain curve predicted from FE simulation is compared to
what is happening in the stress contour of vertical CT slice. Before load-
ing, it is observed that there are some larger size pores with thin cell-
walls present at the middle of foam's thickness. This region is demarcat-
ed by two dotted lines and labeled as relatively weak zone. Maximum
amount of deformation localization is noticed in the weaker region
during loading. This observation well agrees with our experimental
observations.
It is important to note that, the pore collapse during uniaxial com-
pression is an autocatalytic process. After initial deformation of a region
of cell-walls, it transmits the load to next weaker regions and absorbs
energy without significant changes of stress (state b–e). The deformed
cell-walls do not significantly bear the increasing loads but instead

Fig. 12. Deformed and undeformed axial cross-sectional slice and deformation mechanisms of individual pore.
20 M.A. Kader et al. / Materials and Design 118 (2017) 11–21
that they change their shapes following the surroundings spaces. There-
fore, the stress strain response shows a small plateau region after initial
yielding (state c–d). This observation also agrees that the foams with
low density ratio will have longer plateau stress [11].
However, at higher strain values (from state e) the void fractions de-
crease and consequently exhibit some lateral expansion. After 30% com-
pression, due to the higher solid to void ratio the structure starts to carry
more stress and leads to increase the trend of stress-strain curves. This
collapse process was continuing until the full structure becomes densi-
fied. Notably, the plateau borders (junction points) marked with red cir-
cles show higher stress carrying capacity.
A transverse cross-sectional slice (A-A′) before and after compres-
sion was analyzed to get information about lateral deformation. As it
is shown in Fig. 11, the shape and size of pores on the horizontal slice
change with increasing axial strain. The cell-walls laterally move to-
wards the nearest void spaces and curled into the voids. Moreover, the
collapsed cell-walls from top move towards downward and occupy
the voids underneath the layers. This finding strongly agrees with the
experimental observation.
3.2.1. Individual pore collapse mechanism analysis with cross-sectional
slice
To explore the details of individual pore collapse mechanisms, the
deformation of an axial slice with respect to the original shape is ob-
served and presented in Fig. 12. Four pores of different shapes and
sizes have been selected and labeled as A–D.
The deformed and undeformed shapes of each of the pores are pre-
sented collectively and separately for better understanding about the
relatively movement of every part. It is observed that the pore collapse
initiates at the weakest position (thin) of cell-wall and proceeds via
forming hinges (marked with blue circles), rotation, buckling and bend-
ing. Due to the heterogeneity of strength, some cell-walls produce more
than one plastic hinges during deformation. The deformed cell-walls ro-
tate around the hinges under the developed bending moments. The di-
rection of rotation depends on the position of hinges and strong
supports. When a cell-wall undergoes buckling it induced eccentricity
and experienced additional load to faster collapse. The selected pores
A and D are almost round whereas pores B and C are ellipsoidal in
shape. It is observed that the cell shapes do not have significant prefer-
ence to individual cell collapse. The size of pore B is comparatively larger
than pore D and smaller than pore C. The pores C and D deformed before
pore B without showing size preference on collapse. The heterogeneity
of cell-walls strength dominates the onset and propagation of collapse
over pore shape and sizes. The lateral or transverse strain (εt) of the de-
formed slice shows in Fig. 12 is almost zero (at axial stain, εA = 0.13).
However, significant percentages of lateral strains are observed at cell
level. It produces local positive and negative poison's ratio. The positive
and negative poison's ratio among neighboring pores restrains the
propagation of lateral strain.
This numerical observation is consistent and agrees well with the
present and previous experimental works [8,21]. However, the experi-
mental approach was not able to show the intermediate steps during
deformation. To do this would require in-situ x-ray tomography and
this will be the subject of future study.
4. Conclusions
The deformation mechanisms of closed-cell aluminium foams for
quasi-static compression were investigated experimentally and compu-
tationally. A high fidelity micro-computed tomography based foam ge-
ometry was developed to explore the detailed structural deformation.
The major findings of this study are:
1. The stress-strain response from x-ray CT based simulations is in good
agreement with the experimental results. The present numerical
approach is able to replicate the macro and micro collapse mecha-
nisms also observed in experiments.
2. Pores consisting of thin cell-walls and/or a high fraction of defects
predominantly deform and collapse first; variation in cell-wall
strength dominates the collapse process over pore shape and size
distributions. The observed modes of pore collapse are (a) the forma-
tion of plastic hinges, (b) bending, (c) buckling, (d) rotation and (e)
tearing of the cell-walls. The deformed cell-walls rotate around the
hinges under the developed bending moments and the direction of
rotation depends on the position of the hinges and strong supports.
When a cell-wall undergoes buckling it induces eccentricity and
thus experiences additional loads to encourage faster collapse.
3. The pore collapse during uniaxial compression is an autocatalytic
process. Deformation firstly occurs in a region of weak cell-walls,
then load is subsequently transmitted to surrounding cell-walls
and plateau borders (junctions) where the next weakest region of
cell- walls will begin to collapse, and so-forth. This collapse process
continues until the full structure becomes densified. The plateau bor-
ders are able to carry more stress and undergo less deformation com-
pared to the cell-walls throughout the collapse to densification
process.
4. There are large amounts of lateral plastic strain during pore collapse
at the cellular level. However, these lateral strains extend in all direc-
tions perpendicular to the loading direction, effectively cancelling
each other out; consequently, the global lateral deformation of
foam is almost negligible at lower strains (up to 30%).
Acknowledgements
The authors gratefully acknowledge the laboratory facility provided
by Department of Applied Mathematics, Australian National University.
We also gratefully acknowledge the UNSW Canberra Defence Related
Research Program that part-funded this work.
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