Low cycle fatigue analyses of open-celled aluminum foam under compression–compression loading using experimental and microstructure finite element analysis

Low-cycle fatigue behavior of open-cell aluminum foams under compression–compression loading using finite element analyses of created representative volume elements (RVE) and experiments have been investigated in this study. The foam is open-cell type made of aluminum AA6101-T6. Initially, static experimental tests are conducted to determine the yield stress of open-cell aluminum foam, according to ISO 13314 standard. Five different loading levels are selected for the experiments. These loading ranges are empirically selected in which they cause local plastic strains in the cells structures leading to low-cycle fatigue behavior. An algorithm is developed to calculate the low-cycle fatigue life of aluminum foam models. Fatigue tests are also performed for the foam samples under compression cyclic loading using the same selective stress ranges. The predicted fatigue life from numerical analyses are verified by comparing with the experimental results.