Pressure propagation mechanism of open-cell aluminium foam within a pipe under hypervelocity impact

Low-density open-cell aluminium (Al) foam exhibits a different deformation mode under hypervelocity impacts compared to being subjected to medium-low speed and quasi-static compression. In this case, material flows between cells in the form of metal jets and propagates forward. This paper establishes the open-cell Al foam model based on Voronoi tessellation. Using numerical methods, one-dimensional hypervelocity constant velocity impact experiments of 1–6 km/s inside a closed pipe are conducted on Al foam with different internal structure parameters (average cell diameter: 2–3.5 mm; ligament width: 0.251–1 mm). Propagation mechanism of pressure waves in foams and the key factors affecting the propagation velocity are investigated. Three zones are divided according to the condition of jet distribution along the impact direction: unaffected zone, jet influence zone, and particle accumulation zone. The variation of the length of different zones with impact velocity is discussed: higher velocities result in longer jet influence zones but shorter particle accumulation zones. Meanwhile, length of zones is closely related to the width of Al foam ligament and cell pore diameter: the larger the diameter of cell pores and the smaller the width of ligaments, the longer the length of the jet influence zone. Time dependence is exhibited in the length of jet influence zone for the large cell pore diameter specimens(≥0.03 cm). Particle pressures are extracted using the one-dimensional averaging method, which propagates forward significantly lower than in dense materials. Dominant factors affecting the pressure wave propagation of open-cell Al foam, i.e., the internal unloading space, are obtained by combining two-dimensional hypervelocity impact simulation experiments with different boundary conditions. A strong correlation between metal jet distribution and particle pressure propagation is observed.