Abstract Inspired by recent advancements and owing to their low weight, flexible design, and acceptable cushioning and shock absorption, microcellular foams are being widely utilized in the automotive, helmet, aerospace, and transportation packaging fields. Herein, we research the relationship between the mechanical properties of microcellular foams and their meso-structure. This study combines static mechanical property tests with numerical simulations to analyze and predict the effects of different void porosities, cell sizes, and cell morphologies on the static compressive properties of polymethyl-methacrylate (PMMA) microcellular foams. It was determined that the void porosity of the foam had the most significant influence on the static compression performance. For foams with the same average cell size (7 ± 1 μm), the compressive strength increased by 144% (the void porosity was from 65% to 37%); for foams with the same void porosity (64 ± 1%), the compressive strength increased by 42% (the average cell size was from 21 μm to 8 μm). The cell morphology had the least influence on the static mechanical properties. The ellipsoidal cells had a superior compression performance compared to the spherical and the polyhedral cells; the compressive strength increased by 8.2%.

中文翻译：

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PMMA微孔泡沫静态力学性能数值模拟

摘要 受最新进展的启发，微孔泡沫由于其重量轻、设计灵活、缓冲和减震性能良好，被广泛应用于汽车、头盔、航空航天和运输包装领域。在此，我们研究了微孔泡沫的力学性能与其细观结构之间的关系。本研究将静态力学性能测试与数值模拟相结合，分析和预测不同孔隙率、泡孔尺寸和泡孔形态对聚甲基丙烯酸甲酯 (PMMA) 微孔泡沫静态压缩性能的影响。确定泡沫的孔隙率对静态压缩性能的影响最显着。对于具有相同平均泡孔尺寸 (7 ± 1 μm) 的泡沫，抗压强度提高144%（孔隙率由65%提高到37%）；对于具有相同孔隙率（64±1%）的泡沫，压缩强度增加了 42%（平均泡孔尺寸从 21 μm 到 8 μm）。细胞形态对静态力学性能的影响最小。与球形和多面体细胞相比，椭圆形细胞具有更好的压缩性能；抗压强度提高了8.2%。