Cork and cork agglomerates could be suitable replacements for petroleum-based polymeric foams due to their similar internal structure of cells and grains. Additionally, cork products have a renewable origin and are recyclable. Despite these notable properties, few studies have analysed the mechanical properties, especially the specific properties, of these materials under compressive loads. Moreover, although efficiency, ideality, and energy-normalized stress diagrams are commonly used for polymeric foams and 3D-printed lattice structures, these types of diagrams are not yet applied to cork products. It must be highlighted that efficiency diagrams are plotted only against nonspecific properties so, this article proposes additionally the use of nonspecific properties to compare materials not only in terms of properties per unit volume instead but also in terms of properties per unit mass that is more suitable for certain applications in which the weight is crucial. The materials studied herein include three different white cork agglomerates, a brown cork agglomerate, a black cork agglomerate, natural cork, and expanded polystyrene foam, which are subjected to quasi-static compressive loads.

软木和软木附聚物可能是石油基聚合物泡沫的合适替代品，因为它们具有相似的泡孔和颗粒内部结构。另外，软木产品具有可再生来源，并且可以回收。尽管具有这些显着的性能，但很少有研究分析这些材料在压缩载荷下的机械性能，尤其是特定性能。此外，尽管效率，理想度和能量归一化应力图通常用于聚合物泡沫和3D打印的晶格结构，但这些类型的图尚未应用于软木产品。必须强调的是，效率图仅针对非特定属性绘制，因此，本文还建议使用非特定属性来比较材料，不仅在单位体积的属性方面，而且在单位质量的属性方面进行比较，这更适合某些对重量至关重要的应用。本文研究的材料包括三种不同的白色软木附聚物，棕色软木附聚物，黑色软木附聚物，天然软木和膨胀聚苯乙烯泡沫，它们承受准静态压缩载荷。