Pergamon PII S1359-6462(98)00401-1

Scripta Materialia, Vol. 40, No. 1, pp. 7177, 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd Copyright 1998 Acta Metallurgica Inc. Printed in the USA. All rights reserved. 1359-6462/99 $19.00 .00

INFLUENCE OF CELL SHAPE VARIATIONS ON ELASTIC STIFFNESS OF CLOSED CELL CELLULAR SOLIDS
Joachim L. Grenestedt
Department of Aeronautics, Division of Lightweight Structures, Kungl Tekniska Hogskolan (Royal Institute of Technology), S-100 44 Stockholm, Sweden

Kazuto Tanaka*
Department of Aeronautics, Division of Lightweight Structures, Kungl Tekniska Hogskolan (Royal Institute of Technology), S-100 44 Stockholm, Sweden (Received September 22, 1998) (Accepted October 1, 1998) Introduction The micro structures of most cellular solids are typically rather disordered, as opposed to being uniform, perfectly ordered and periodic. A number of deviations, or imperfections, from a perfectly ordered foam can be identified. These include e.g. cell wall thickness variations, wavy distortions of the cell walls, and non-uniform shape of the cells. The influence of thickness variations has been studied by Grenestedt and Bassinet [1]. The influence of wavy distortions on stiffness has been studied by Grenestedt [2] and Simone and Gibson [3]. Silva and Gibson [4] studied the influence of cell wall removal in 2D foams. Open cell foams with non-uniform cell shapes have been analyzed by Van der Burg et al. [5]; their analysis have much in common with the present analysis, and our results will be compared at the end of the paper. In the present paper, closed cell foams with non-uniform cell shapes are studied. The study is limited to 3D materials, and elastic properties. Finite element models of closed cell 3D foams are created with varying degrees of cell shape non-uniformity. The uniform reference model is the flat faced Kelvin structure (Thomson [6]), which consists of 14-sided polyhedra in a bcc arrangement. This model is good for for example closed cell PVC foam, Grenestedt [7], such as the Divinycell H-grade materials (Divinycell [8]). This uniform reference model is then perturbed, and models with varying degrees of non-uniformity are created. The influence of non-uniform shapes is quantified and presented in the paper. Kelvin Reference Model with Uniform Cell Shapes The reference model with uniform cell shapes consists of flat faced tetrakaidecahedra as depicted in Fig. 1, in a bcc arrangement. When this model was analyzed by Grenestedt [7], a finite element (FE) model was made which utilized symmetry and periodicity. It sufficed to model the cell walls within a cube with the side L/2, where L is the width of a tetrakaidecahedron (see Fig. 1). The relative density of the
*Presently at Kyoto University, Faculty of Engineering, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto 606-01, Japan.

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Figure 1. A tetrakaidecahedron of the flat faced Kelvin bcc foam. The projections in the three different coordinate directions are identical. Tetrakaidecahedra of this shape can be packed in a bcc fashion and will then fill space.

cellular solid is ( / ) t(6A1 8A2)/L3 3.35t/L when all cell walls have the same thickness; A1 and A2 are the cell wall areas depicted in Fig. 1, and t is the thickness of the cell walls. Volume elements of order Lt2 at intersections between faces have been disregarded here, and will be so for all analysis in this paper. Model with Non-Uniform Cell Shapes We wish to create models for cellular solids, where the cells have different shapes but all cell walls are kept flat and of uniform thickness. The presently used models were made as Voronoi boundaries of points pk in 3D space. These points k p will here be termed kernels. The Voronoi set Vk of kernel pk is the set of points in space which are closer to pk than to any other kernel pl, where k l. Each Voronoi set Vk (which here is a volume) is convex and encloses only one kernel, pk. The boundaries of the Voronoi sets are flat. By creating kernels in a bcc arrangement and making the Voronoi boundaries, the flat faced Kelvin foam is obtained. The models for cellular solids with non-uniform cell shapes were made in the same way, but the location of the kernels were perturbed from the perfect bcc arrangement. Let xk be the i perturbed coordinates of kernel k, and xk be the coordinates of the same kernel in the perfect bcc i arrangement. The coordinates will be perturbed as follows: xk i xk i L
k i

(1)

where the amplitude of the cell shape non-uniformity is a real number, L is the diameter of the tetrakaidecahedron of the perfect cell (see Fig. 1), and k ( 1,1) is a stochastic variable with a i uniform distribution. The properties of the foam will obviously depend on the set of stochastic variables { k}. The i expectation values of the foam properties should be calculated if possible, or many simulations with different sets { k} should be performed. i The dependence of statistical averages of foam properties (e.g. shear modulus) on the imperfection amplitude may be expressed by a Taylor series, G Go 1 c1 c2
2

c3

...

(2)

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Figure 2. A sequence of 2D cellular solids generated from perturbed kernels. The unit cell is drawn with bold lines. The kernels are marked with circles (or dots within the unit cell). The statistical distribution { k} is the same for all figures, but the amplitude i of the cell shape non-uniformity varies. Observe that and in general make different cellular solids for the same { k}. i

where G0 is the modulus of the perfect foam ( 0). Now, if { k} is one particular set, then another i k feasible set is { i }. This has the same effect as changing the sign of . This implies that, on a statistical average, we should obtain the same property for as for . In other words, in the Taylor expansion, the odd terms should vanish (c1 c3 . . . 0). Recall however that and generally make different foam topologies for a given set { k}; see also Fig. 2. i For the calculation of mechanical properties, we chose to make a unit cell with 16 kernels, and repeat this unit cell periodically in three dimensions. The lattice vectors (for this unit cell with 16 kernels) were chosen to be orthogonal and of the same length, 2L. The choice of 16 kernels is believed to be sufficient to quantify the effect of non-uniform cell shapes in a cellular solid, and still be manageable for FE computations. The method of generating a cellular solid from perturbed kernels is demonstrated in 2D in Fig. 2. All FE calculations were made for 3D. A model for a 3D cellular solid with 0.5 is depicted in Fig. 3. All cell walls within a model had the same thickness. The cell wall thickness was determined to obtain certain densities. Thus, two models with the same densities may be due to different total cell wall areas have different cell wall thicknesses. Finite Element Analysis Macroscopic stress ij and strain kl are introduced as volume averages over a unit cell. Macroscopic elastic stiffnesses are introduced as the quantities relating macroscopic stress ij to macroscopic strain kl,
ij

C ijkl

kl

ij

S ijkl

kl

(3)

Here and in the remainder of the paper, over head bars are used for macroscopic quantities (for the cellular solid), as opposed to quantities for the solid in the cell walls.

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Figure 3. Flat faced non-uniform foam model with 0.5. The total volume of this model is 16 times that of a single tetrakaidecahedron in the flat faced Kelvin model. The model repeats periodically in 3D.

The general purpose finite element package ABAQUS was used for all FE analyses. The shear deformable 8 noded shell element S8R was used. There are no through-the-thickness stresses in the cell walls. The FE model consisted of a couple of thousand elements, the exact number depending on cell shapes. Rigorous periodic boundary conditions were applied. No geometric or material symmetry was used apart from the periodicity of the unit cell with 16 cells. The model was loaded by periodic displacements, such that the resulting deformation fulfills deformation and traction periodicity. The 21 stiffness components Cijkl of the cellular solid were calculated by performing six calculations on each unit cell. For each calculation, only one of the six strain components ij were given a non-zero value, and six stress components ij were extracted. From the 6 6 stress components thus obtained, the 21 elastic stiffnesses Cijkl were calculated. The Poisson ratio of the cell wall material was 0.3 for all calculations. Many of the real foams which we wish to model are more or less isotropic. The foams modeled here have no symmetries, so all 21 elastic stiffnesses Cijkl may be different and non-zero. From the results from the calculations on the cells models, we may create equivalent isotropic media, whose stiffnesses are given by shear and bulk moduli G and K. Upper (Voigt) bounds on these moduli can be derived. Lower (Reuss) bounds can be derived for a polycrystal made of homogeneous anisotropic material, but the application to a cellular solid is questionable (the lower bound stiffnesses of a cellular solid are zero, and they are obtained e.g. with the material clustered in non-contacting regions). The procedure to obtain isotropic stiffnesses has been discussed by e.g. Kroner [9] and Grenestedt [7]. The isotropic Voigt stiffnesses are KV GV and the isotropic Reuss stiffnesses are KR G
R

C iijj/9 (4) 3C ijij C iijj /30

1 S iijj 15 2 3S ijij S iijj (5)

These will be presented for all calculations.

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Figure 4. Stiffness versus amplitude of shape variations . (a) bulk modulus of imperfect foam divided by bulk modulus of perfect foam [K( )/K(0)], (b) shear modulus of imperfect foam divided by shear modulus of perfect foam [G( )/G(0)]. Open circles are Voigt moduli (KV( )/KV(0), GV( )/GV(0)), horizontal bars are Reuss moduli (KR( )/KR(0), GR( )/GR(0)). The relative density is / 0.01 for all foams in this figure.

Results from Finite Element Analyses The influence of the amplitude of the cell shape non-uniformity was first analyzed for a cellular solid with the density / 0.01. A random sequence 1,k, i 1,2,3, k 1,2,. . . ,16 was generated. This i 1,k sequence i was used to create 12 models with 0.01, 0.05, 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, and 0.5. Finite element analyses were performed on these 12 models, and the stiffnesses Cijkl were extracted. The stiffnesses thus calculated obviously depend on the statistical distribution 1,k. The importance i of the statistical distribution was therefore investigated. The same procedure as outlined above was repeated for 5 statistical distributions, M,k, i 1,2,3, k 1,2,. . . ,16; M 1,2,3,4,5, and the same s i as above. The results from these calculations are presented in Fig. 4. For each calculation, the Voigt (KV, GV) and Reuss (KR, GR) isotropic stiffnesses were extracted. These stiffnesses are for the perfect ( 0) Kelvin foam

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TABLE 1 Standard Deviation of Cell Volumes in the Different Cell Models.

Standard deviation of cell volumes mean cell volume 0 0.01 0.05 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.5 0 0.0065 0.033 0.066 0.14 0.22 0.32

KV GV KR GR

0.003170E 0.001314E KV 0.001311E (6)

when the relative density is / 0.01 and the Poisson ratio of the cell wall material is 0.3. The fact that the perfect Kelvin foam has cubic symmetry leads to K R K V . It is interesting to compare these moduli with the low density asymptotes of the Hashin-Shtrikman upper bounds on bulk and shear moduli, K HS / E G HS / E 0.3175 0.2015 / / (7)

when 0.3. The bulk modulus of the perfect Kelvin foam is very near its upper bound, but the shear modulus is lower than its upper bound. In Fig. 4, the Voigt stiffnesses of the foams with 0 are normalized by the Voigt stiffnesses of the foam with 0 and the same relative density, and the Reuss stiffnesses of the foams with 0 are normalized by the Reuss stiffnesses of the foam with 0 and the same relative density. Not only the shapes, but also the volumes of the cells vary in the non-uniform cell models. The average cell volume is the same in all models, since there are the same number of cells (16 cells) within the unit cell of each model, and the volume of the unit cells are the same (8L3). The standard deviations of the cell volumes are given in Table 1. The scaling of stiffness with relative density was then analyzed. The scaling with density is known to be very near linear for the perfect Kelvin foam, Grenestedt [7]. Presently, only the scaling for the case 0.5 was analyzed. Ten new models were made, five with the density / 0.00333, and five with the density / 0.0333. The foams of each density had the same five statistical distributions as used earlier ( M,k, i 1,2,3, k 1,2,. . . ,16; M 1,2,3,4,5). The stiffnesses scaled linearly; fitting a power i law to the data gave the exponent 1.0009 for the bulk modulus and 1.007 for the shear modulus. One reason the scaling of stiffnesses with density is of interest is that one may have expected that non-uniform cell shapes could lead to more bending taking place in the cell walls. If bending is the main deformation mechanism, then stiffnesses scale cubically with density, whereas if stretching is the main deformation mechanism then stiffnesses scale linearly with density.

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Discussions and Conclusions Van der Burg et al. [5] studied open cell foams with non-uniform cell shapes, using an approach which is very similar to the present. They used a network of struts aligned with the edges of the flat-faced Kelvin foam as their reference model. Non-uniform models were made by perturbing bcc or fcc arranged kernels and making Voronoi sets, and aligning struts along the edges of these sets. Periodicity as was not used. The open cell reference model deforms mainly by bending except under isotropic loading, Warren and Kraynik [10]. The findings of Van der Burg et al. [5] was that Youngs modulus of the cellular solid increases with non-uniformity, which is in complete contrast with our finding for closed cell cellular solids. The reason appears to be that the open cell reference model deforms mainly by bending (and thus is soft), whereas in the non-uniform open cell models a number of struts appear to line up and form chain like structures through the cellular solids. These chain like structures deform by necessity by stretching, which stiffens the cellular solid. The reference model for the closed cell cellular solids deforms virtually completely by stretching under hydrostatic deformation. Non-uniformity leads to more bending deformation, and the bulk modulus decreases. The shear modulus is similarly affected, but to a lesser extent. Neither bulk nor shear modulus are very sensitive to cell wall shape variations in the present closed cell model. Even for 0.5, the bulk modulus has only decreased by less than 16% and the shear modulus by less than 9%. Acknowledgment The Geometry Center at the University of Minnesota is acknowledge for letting us use the program Qhull to generate Voronoi sets. References
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. J. L. Grenestedt and F. Bassinet, Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, in preparation. J. L. Grenestedt, J. Mech. Phys. Solids. 46, 29 (1998). A. E. Simone and L. J. Gibson, MIT, Cambridge, MA, submitted (1997). M. J. Silva and L. J. Gibson, Int. J. Mech. Sci. 39, 549 (1997). M. W. D. Van der Burg, V. Shulmeister, E. Van der Giessen, and R. Marissen, J. Cell. Plastics. 33, 31 (1997). W. Thomson (Lord Kelvin), Phil. Mag. 24, 503 (1887). J. L. Grenestedt, Int. J. Solids Struct. in press (1998). Divinycell, Technical Manual H Grade, DIAB, Laholm, Sweden (1995). E. Kroner, Z. Phys. 151, 504 (1958). W. E. Warren and A. M. Kraynik, J. Appl. Mech. 64, 787 (1997).