Nonlinear behavior of bumper foams under uniaxial compressive cyclic loading

Theoretical and experimental studies on the nonlinear behaviors of bumper foams under cyclic loading are carried out in this paper. To study the compressible materials, the incompressible viscoelastic model proposed by Rajagopal and Srinivasa in 2000 is modified and expressed as a function of the principal stretches. The modified model is used to describe bumper foams for the first time. Besides, in order to better predict the nonlinear process of bumper foams under cyclic loading, a new compressible viscoplastic model is proposed, which is expressed separately as the invariants of stretches and the principal stretches. Then the compressible viscoelastic model and the compressible viscoplastic model are used to describe the response of bumper foams under cyclic loading with constant and variable amplitudes, respectively. The experimental results demonstrate that the compressible viscoelastic model and the compressible viscoplastic model are both suitable to describe the response of bumper foams under cyclic loading, the new proposed compressible viscoplastic model is more suitable to describe the deformation at the end of each cycle.