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In this research, closed-cell natural rubber foams were produced using a single-step compression molding. The effect of carbon black content on morphology, physical and mechanical properties of the foams were examined. Results showed that in this methodology, the foam density was independent of reinforcement percentage, which is a unique characteristic of single-step foams that contrasts with other previous observations. The study of curing behavior of foam compounds showed that the carbon black increasing from 0 to 30 phr increased the crosslink density (CLD) from 6.5 to 8.3*10^-5 mol/cm³, the cure rate from 16.1 to 23.2 (%/min) and the ultimate torque from 5.8 to 10.4 Nm, while, reduced curing time from 9.2 to 5.8 min. The scanning electron microscope (SEM) results showed that the reinforcement acted as a nucleation agent increasing the cell density from 8 N/cm³ to 140 N/cm³ and reducing the cell size from 579µm to 255µm. The increase of reinforcing content in the produced foams reduced the cells size and enhanced the properties of the rubber matrix. Accordingly, the modulus and hardness of the foams were increased by  0.8MPa and 40 shore A, respectively. Results of sound absorption and reflection showed that the rubber foam reflects the sound waves more than 90% and absorbs waves about 10%.

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During the last decades, many researches have been carried out on development of supplemental passive energy absorption devices especially hysteretic metallic dampers and different types of them with different capacities and potentials have been developed. The idea of buckling of thin-walled tubes and the use of this property was led to develop an accordion metallic damper (AMD) [Motamedi, Nateghi-Alahi-2007]. This damper utilizes the capability of accordion thin-walled tube for excitation of axisymmetric concertina buckling mode as a damping mechanism which in turn increases the amount of dissipated energy. In this paper filled accordion metallic damper (FAMD) is suggested and analytically and experimentally the behavior of AMD's and FAMD's under axial cyclic loading are investigated and compared. For this purpose, Firstly analytical studies based on Finite element method and nonlinear dynamic analysis was performed on FAMD's for the determination of the approximate preliminary specifications of different polymers for potential use. After specifying the preliminary material properties, 4 specimens include 2 FAMD's filled by polymeric foam and 2 AMD's were subjected to dynamic tension and compression actuator and the effect of filling AMD's by this polymeric foam on the some of important specifications of damper studied and try to use this method for improving and developing of AMD's. Based on the results obtained using the appropriate filling inside the AMD's is a suitable technique for the purpose of improvement the some of important specifications such as the number of cycles before failure, amount of dissipated energy and plastic capacity. The effect of interaction between foam and accordion thin walled tubes play an important role for this purpose especially in low capacity AMD's.

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- In this study, Aluminum closed-cell foam was produced through accumulative roll bonding using TiH2 as blowing agent. Then, the effect of the number of rolling passes, foaming temperature, foaming time and heating rate on percent of porosity was investigated. The results indicate that foaming process improves with increasing temperature. The TiH2 powder was uniformly dispersed into the matrix with increasing the number of roll passes and caused an increase of the percent of porosity. Finally, 41% of porosity at foaming temperature of 680°C, foaming time of 5 min and heating rate of 10(°C)/s was produced.

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Metal foams are a new class of materials with interesting structural properties; however no comprehensive understanding of their inelastic behavior has been established yet. Since the experimental studies of these materials have their own limitations, there is a growing research interest towards the mesostructural modeling of these materials. Accordingly many researchers have been trying to generate realistic and representative numerical models of the foams and prepare computational labs in which different aspects of foams mechanical behavior can be thoroughly investigated. The following three kinds of mesostructures have been commonly employed: (1) models based on a unit cell or a building block, (2) random Voronoi diagrams, and (3) CAD structures provided by the X-ray micro-computed tomography. In the current study, the physically representative circle set Voronoi diagrams are employed to define the geometry of 2D metallic foams. It is assumed that the minimum and maximum radii of the circular generators are 0.5 and 1.5 mm, respectively. The first sample is generated using linear distribution of cell size while, compared to the first sample, the second and third specimens have less and more small cells. An extra specimen (the forth sample) is also created with the same structure of the first one unless its edges are straight. In the next step, the FE models of the specimens are created using second order Timoshenko beam elements. Finally, the effects of microstructural features (e.g. strut curvature and cell size distribution) on the initial yield surface, elastic properties, and failure modes of the foams are numerically investigated under various biaxial loading conditions. Displacement-controlled loading is used. A newly energy-based approach developed for the identification of initial yield points has been incorporated. The results show that: (a) the size of the initial yield surface is significantly influenced by the curvature of the cell struts, (b) in the principal stresses space, the initial yield surface is bigger in the tension-tension region, (c) for a constant relative density, the presence of more big cells in a sample increases the size of the yield envelope, and (d) the macroscopic yield properties of the specimens can be interpreted according the microscopic failure mechanisms of the plastic yielding, elasto-plastic buckling, and plastic hinging of the struts. Furthermore, it is found that the previously proposed energy-based method for the identification of yield initiation under multiaxial loading conditions has serious shortcomings and needs revision.

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  Active packaging is one of the innovative concepts in food packaging that has been used for controlling environmental parameters such as moisture content in the package. In this study the quality and quantity characteristics of button mushroom were investigated by color, maturity index, opening caps and weight loss after the storage at refrigerator temperature (5 ±2 ° C). The treatments included packaging film at two levels: (clear PVC box and stretch PVC), moisture absorber at four levels: and storage time at five levels: (0, 4, 8, 12 and 16 days). Four moisture absorber treatments were included: the first treatment containing silica gel 1.25 g, the secondary treatment silica gel 2.5 g, the third treatment only  spongy foam, the forth treatment  containing silica gel 1.25 g and spongy foam. The analyses showed that the stretch PVC in comparison to clear PVC films had the lowest open cap mushroom and weight loss. Silica gel (1.25g) treatment and only foam treatment with stretch PVC film had the lowest open cap. The sensorial evaluation showed there was no significant difference between treatments in terms of maturity index. In terms of cap color, judges preferred button mushrooms treatments by silica gel (1.25 g) with clear PVC box and Silica gel (1.25g) with stretch PVC treatments and there were significant differences between them and other treatments.  

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Aluminum foam structure is of great importance in aerospace, naval and automotive industries due to light weight and energy absorption characteristics. In this article several aluminum foam having different densities and thickness were designed and tested using light gas gun device. A series of ballistic test were defined in order to determine the effects of density, foam thickness and projectile velocity on energy absorption aluminum foam structures. The results of the experimental testes, it is shown that the amount of energy absorption of aluminum foam structures is increased as density, foam thickness and velocity of the projectile is increased.

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Sandwich panels(structures) of metal surface having aluminum foam core are of great importance in aerospace, naval and automotive industries due to high strength to weight ratio and high energy absorption characteristics. In this article several aluminum sandwich panels with aluminum foam core having different densities and thickness were designed and tested using light gas gun device. A series of ballistic test were defined in order to determine the effects of density, foam thickness and projectile velocity on energy absorption and ballistic limit velocity of sandwich structures. The material model used for metal foam was Deshpande- Fleck-Foam and coefficients were determined experimentally using foam and Matlab capabilities. Also, numerical simulation using LSDYNA software were performed. The results of the experiment and numerical simulation were compared and there was a good agreement between experimental investigation and numerical results. Using experimental testes and parametric studies,it is shown that the amount of energy absorption of sandwich structures is increased as density, foam thickness and velocity of the projectile is increased.

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In this paper, a new analytical model has been presented for energy absorption of aluminum-foam sandwich panels under ballistic impact. The panels consist of foam core sandwiched between two aluminum skins. In analytical model two types of sticker including cylindrical projectile with flat and hemispherical ended have been considered. It is supposed that aluminum skins failure by mean resistive pressure. Also foam absorbed a partial of projectile energy by crushing. Energy absorption of aluminum-foam sandwich panel is calculated and energy balancing equation has been employed for determination the ballistic limit and residual velocity of projectiles. The results of ballistic limit and residual velocity computed by new model have good agreement with experimental results. Also the effects of projectile mass and diameter in energy absorption of sandwich panel has been investigated.

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Accurate estimation of the pressure losses for non-Newtonian drilling fluids inside annulus is quite important to determine pump rates and select mud pump systems during wellbore drilling operation. The aim of this study is to simulate non-Newtonian (power law and Herschel-Bulkly) foam flow in underbalanced drilling condition through wellbore annulus using finite volume method. The effect of various operational parameters on pressure loss such as fluid rheology, foam fluid velocity, foam quality, drillpipe rotation and wellbore eccentricity, have been considered. Simulation results were compared with the previously published experimental data. The agreement was close with a relative error less than 5%. The results of numerical method are closer to experimental data for Herschel Bulkly model for foam fluid. Also, the results of numerical method, showed that pressure drop increases with increasing the foam fluid velocity and quality and it decreases with increasing eccentricity, but drillpipe rotation don’t have noticeable effect on pressure drop.

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This paper presents the experimental study on vibration characteristics of polymeric nanocomposites containing 1 weight percentage of mesoporous silica (MCM-41), Hydroxy Apatite(HA), the composite of MCM-41 and HA (MH) and carbon nanotube (CNT) as a fillers. Experimental results show that damping ratio and natural frequency increase in the neat PP, CNT/ PP, HA/ PP, MCM-41/ PP nanocomposites and MH/ PP hybrid nanocomposite specimens, respectively. In order to introduce the effect of foam agent in the vibration absorbing properties, foam agent is added to CNT/ PP and MH/ PP nanocomposits. The results show that foamed specimens have more damping capacity and lower natural frequency than unfoamed specimens. The maximum value of increasing the damping ratio and natural frequency of the MH/ PP hybrid nanocomposite than neat PP is 55.02 % and 34.05%, respectively. So, MH/ PP hybrid nanocomposite that is studied in this paper for the first time, can remove the reduction of unwanted vibrations of structures problems.

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This paper presents an experimental study on the mold design and the effect of processing parameters on the expansion of foam injection molded parts. Limitation in foam expansion is a primary challenge in foam injection molding process. In this study a novel approach in mold design is introduced to take advantages of concepts such as counter-pressure and mold opening to further extend the expansion range. A modular sheet mold with a rectangular cavity and a fan gate was designed and manufactured. The mold includes a main cavity, the thickness of which could be varied, connected to an overflow channel via a secondary gate, the size of which was also varied in this research. The investigated parameters were part thickness, secondary gate width. Full factorial test experiments were carried out in this research work. The results indicated the high effectiveness of the proposed approach in further reducing the foamed part weight. For the parts with a larger thickness, a noticeable decrease in bulk density and an increase in cell population density along with an improvement in cellular structure uniformity were observed.

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Syntactic foams are a kind of composite; consist of polymeric matrix and hollow micro-balloons. They have high strength to weight ratio if it compare to the neat matrix material. In this paper epoxy resin as matrix and ceramic micro-balloons are used and 36 kinds of syntactic foam were fabricated to investigate the effect of preparation factors such as: mixing speed, mixing time, mixing sequence and extracting bubbles by a vacuum oven on the mechanical properties. Also, two undesirable events like micro-balloon flotation in matrix and porosity are investigated as they affect the foam`s strength. The results show that the speed and sequence of mixing are not effective seriously. However the time needed for mixing would be changed for different volume percent of micro-balloons. It should be noted that as flotation and porosity increases the compression strength decreases. Using the vacuum pressure before molding may decrease the matrix porosity for above 40% micro-balloon volume fraction syntactic foams. Converse to previous, using the vacuum pressure for below 40% micro-balloon volume fraction syntactic foams would increase the floatation and decreases the compression strength.

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Metal foams as a new class of materials with interesting properties such as high stiffness and strength to density ratios, capacity to absorb impact energy, and reproducibility, are rapidly growing their share in advanced materials market. However, due to their porous microstructure, experimental investigations of their properties are not trivial and normally need rigorous procedures and high end equipments. Accordingly, there is a growing research interest towards the numerical modeling of their cellular structure in which the following three kinds of models have been commonly employed: (1) structures based on a unit cell or a building block, (2) random Voronoi diagrams, and (3) CAD data provided by Xray micro-computed tomography. In the current study, the mesostructure of aluminum foam produced by the brazing technique is simulated as a connected assembly of spherical shells. The latest inward packing scheme from the set of constructive algorithms is incorporated to efficiently pack the spheres in space. The Gamma distribution is used to control the cell diameters. Three mean values of 3, 4, and 5 mm and two variances of 0.5 and 1.0 mm are assumed for the radii of spheres and cubic specimens of 50 mm are generated. Two assumptions of constant thickness and constant thickness to radius ratio have been applied to the spherical shells. Two relative densities of 0.05 and 0.1 have been examined in the current study. A code is written to automatically transfer these geometrical data to ABAQUS FE program. The models are then meshed in 1 mm S4R shell elements. Tie contacts are defined between neighbor spheres. Furthermore, self contact is used to prevent any probable penetrations in the models. The foaming material is assumed to be AL 3003 H12 with elastic-perfectly plastic behavior. Next, the uniaxial load is applied by means of two rigid planes and the stress-strain curves are extracted. Main attention has been paid to the elastic modulus and initial yield stress of foam. It is observed that keeping the mean value of the radius and increasing its variance lead to the generation of more small spheres within the microstructure which itself increases the number of interactions inside the foam and thus increases elastic modulus and yield stress. The results also show that, for both thickness assumptions made here, increasing the mean radius of spheres decreases the number of spheres and their interaction points and subsequently weakens their uniaxial mechanical properties. Furthermore, compared to foams generated based on the constant thickness to radius ratio assumption, the presence of thick small spheres in foams with cells of constant thickness makes them stiffer and stronger. This effect is more pronounced in foam with higher densities

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In this research, microcellular thermoplastic polyurethane foams are investigated as an absorbing material in the X-band                (8.2-12.4GHz) frequency range by means of numerical analysis and experiment. In the frame of this work, we aim at establishing relationships between the foams morphology including cell size and air volume fraction and their radar absorbing properties. We therefore first describe numerical method and modelling. Then numerical analysis of microcellular foams in various cell sizes and air volume fractions are explained. Then design basis and preparation of nanocomposite foams of various morphologies using supercritical carbon dioxide (scCO₂) as physical foaming agent are presented. After measuring the S-Parameters of the samples by VNA, numerical and experimental results are compared and finally we establish structure/properties relationships that are essential for further optimizations of the materials for the radar absorbing applications.  

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Metal foams are a new class of materials which are used excessively in recent decade for their good physical and mechanical properties such as low density yet high strength, as well as their good thermal properties which turned them to a good thermal insulator. The main characteristic of the foams is the existence of pores in them which are distributed randomly. Because of the importance of these materials in engineering and other applications, there has been given importance to modeling of them. In this article, a new method has presented for modeling of closed-cell foams and a program has written in macro environment of CATIA software in Visual Basic language which made the modeling of metallic foams with controllable pore size and density possible. In continue, the effect of the pore size and the number of the holes on the relative density of the foams has studied. Comparing the properties of the modeled foams using the presented algorithm and real foams has shown a good agreement. The modeled foams have the ability to get into the finite-element software.

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Epoxy / ceramic micro balloon syntactic foams are used in marine and automobile industries because of their high specific strength and capability of absorbing energy. In this paper, the neat epoxy and 9 series of syntactic foams with 3 kinds of ceramic micro balloon with different diameters and crush strength in different volume fractions (20%, 40% & 60%) were fabricated. Effect of varying these parameters on the mechanical properties of syntactic foams is investigated. Besides of all, the effect of different loading rate is investigated, too. All of the samples were tested in 10-1, 10-2 and 10-3 strain rates. The results indicate that with increasing the strain rate from quasi-static to moderate rates, the strength of foams became more. Also the results show that the syntactic foam with bigger micro balloon was weak in compression. In syntactic foams of low volume fraction the size effects is more. On the other hand, with increasing the volume fraction, the crush strength of micro balloon is become effective. Plateau stress and absorbed energy results show these facts obviously. With increasing the strain rate, the strength is increased considerably.

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It is a decade that replication process has gained lots of interests in the production of open-cell metallic foams. Replication process usually involves the steps of preparing porous preform, filling the free spaces by foaming material, and removing the space-holders (usually by dissolution). Independent control of pore size, pore shape, and relative density, the possibility of producing foams with pores of few microns, nearly fault free and uniform structures critical in conducting reproducible mechanical tests, applicability to various metal and alloys, and the simplicity of producing functionally graded structures are some of the benefits making replication process quite appealing for researchers involved in the field of cellular solids. This study assumes that the space-holders are initially monomodal spheres packed in regular simple cubic (sc), body-centered cubic (bcc), and face-centered cubic (fcc) configurations. However, the primary shapes and structures of these assemblies undergo considerable changes in the process of compaction. Thus, the realistic numerical simulation of replicated foams is required to address this compressing stage. Accordingly, the physical processes of cold isostatic pressing and preform removal (dissolution) is simulated using nonlinear finite element method and voxel element method, respectively. A code is written to take the deformed shape of a preform (as a set of finite elements), efficiently invert the geometry, and create the FE model of replicated structure as a set of voxel elements. Three pore sizes of 0.1, 1, and 10 mm are assumed. The corresponding unit cells are compressed to reach the desired void volume fractions of around 5 to 25%. Assuming an aluminum alloy as the foaming material, uniaxial compressive load is applied to the samples and their elastic moduli, Poisson’s ratios, and yield stresses are extracted. In the range of preforms and pore sizes simulated, no cell size dependency of the results has been observed. The fcc structure, owing to its oblique beam-like elements, shows the most flexible behavior. On the other hand, the sc structure is found the stiffest in the group. The dependencies of elastic and yield properties to relative density increase by migrating from the sc to the bcc and next to the fcc structures. More in-depth study of the results reveals that the bcc samples of higher relative densities have inherent elastic behaviors near those of the sc specimens. From yield stress point of view, the bcc and fcc foams are found superior and inferior, respectively. The computed yield stresses are also compared to some previously reported analytical estimations from which the strength level of each structure is identified. The power law exponents of numerically calculated yield points are shown to be less than their empirical counterparts. This is attributed to the random structure of actual foams and their imperfect struts. Finally, it needs to note that, the extended application of the developed computational procedure to the random assemblies of spherical preforms is already under investigation.

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The present paper investigated the capability of various non-linear k–ε models for predicting flow field and pollutant dispersion around a cubical model building with a stack vent located on its roof center within the turbulent boundary layer. One quadratic model proposed by Nisizima and Yoshizawa, and two cubic models, proposed by Lien et al. and Ehrhard and Moussiopoulos were examined by comparing their simulation results with the wind tunnel data and standard k–ε model. All the computations were performed by using the self-developed object-oriented C++ programming in OpenFOAM CFD package, which contains applications and utilities for finite volume solvers. The standard k–ε model provided inadequate results for the flow field, because it could not reproduce the basic flow structures, such as reverse flow on the roof. By contrast, the non-linear models were able to predict anisotropic stresses and correctly showed the dominant stress over the roof to be the streamwise Reynolds stress. The non-linear models were able to predict the concentration field better than the SKE model due to inclusion of the quadratic and cubic terms. Among the RANS models, the Ehrhard model showed the best agreement with the experimental data. It was shown that concentrations predicted by all turbulence models were less diffusive than those of the experiment, although the non-linear k–ε models have reduced this difference.

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In this article, two-phase slug flow is simulated numerically in a horizontal duct with rectangular cross-section using Volume Of Fluid (VOF) method. Conservation equations of mass, momentum and advection equation are solved in open source OpenFOAM code accompanying k-ω SST turbulence equations. Simulation is conducted based on the experimental results in the duct with rectangular cross-section. The results shows, due to Kelvin-Helmholtz (K-H) instability criteria slug initiation forms in the air-water interface during three dimensional turbulence modeling. Water level was increased slightly at interface in both numerical simulation and experiment. This level increase satisfies the K-H instability to generate a slug at interface. During slug initiation, the pressure behind slug is increased significantly. Big pressure gradient at the beginning of the slug in compare to the end of it causes the slug length to be increased as propagate along the duct. The numerical simulation of present research is capable of predicting the slug length accurately in accordance with experiment; however, the slug position with 22% inaccuracy was obtained. Comparison of the results with the numerical and experimental results of other researchers confirms higher accuracy of flow prediction in the present work.

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Axial compression behavior of foam materials can be explained by two ideal deformation scenarios: discrete crush band process and progressive collapse. In this paper, a perfectly new model for strength assessment and quantitative/qualitative description of one-dimensional progressive collapse of aluminum foams under impulsive loadings is presented and its capability to split this way of crushing into two distinct regimes of shock wave and elastic- plasic wave propagation is highlighted. Then, using conservation relations and the new introduced model, the analytical solution of dynamic deformation of aluminum foams in the two mentioned regimes is developed. Regime 2 considers the case when the crushing front velocity is lower than the linear sound velocity of the foam; but remains higher than the effective sound velocity for a perturbation in which the amplitude lies in the so-called “plateau region’ of the static stress-strain diagram. The physical difference between this regime and the fiest one entails not only the creation a shock front associated with the collapsing foam, but also an acoustic precursor in the case of second regime.Finite element simulation is also performed to validate the analytical procedure. The numerical prediction is found to be in very good agreement with the analytical results.