Abstract:
Local material damage that occurs within cellular solids, such as polymer foams and trabecular bone, and precedes local fractures of the cell struts or walls is called micro-damage. The accumulation of micro-damage within cellular solids is often undesirable, although it is thought to be vital to the development and health of trabecular bone. However, the unique properties and complex architectures of cellular solids make it difficult to characterize local damage development with traditional experimental and analytical methods. The ability to spatially locate and locally quantify micro-damage within cellular solids could explain the mechanics governing its development in engineered materials and its biomechanical role in the development of trabecular bone. Digital volume correlation is a technique that can measure full-field strains within reconstructed image volumes. This technique is employed to measure strains within pre- and post-damaged samples of Sawbones® cellular rigid polyurethane foam loaded in compression, allowing for assessments of the location and extent of micro-damaged regions. Residual strains are measured for three samples to evaluate the effects of microdamage on plastic strain development. Under compression loading at 50 N and 100 N, quantitative and qualitative
differences were observed in the strain distributions of the post-damage condition compared to the pre-damage condition.
