Morphological implications on the mechanics of porous materials

Kurzfassung

The mechanical properties of open-porous cellular materials are guided by their pore-network connectivity and their pore-wall morphologies. In this contribution, both these aspects will be discussed. First, the effect of the pore-network connectivity will be addressed. Here, the scaling exponent as observed in the power scaling relations between e.g., Young’s modulus and the relative density will be explored. While the open-cell foam model calculates the exponent to be 2 [1], many porous materials demonstrate an exponent between 3 and 4 [2]. The morphological implications towards this observation will be illustrated through computational modeling and finite element calculations. Moreover, many open-porous materials show a pearl-necklace-like pore-wall morphology [3]. There, the inter-particle necks play a significant role in determining the mechanical features of such materials, particularly their mode of deformation and failure [4]. This aspect will also be explored in detail. [1] L.J. Gibson, M.F. Ashby, The mechanics of three-dimensional cellular materials, Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. A. Mathematical and Physical Sciences, 382 (1997) 43-59. [2] J. Groß, J. Fricke, Scaling of elastic properties in highly porous nanostructured aerogels, NanoStructured Materials, 6 (1995) 905-908. [3] A. Rege, S. Aney, L. Ratke, Impact of pearl-necklace-like skeleton on pore sizes and mechanical properties of porous materials: A theoretical view, AIP Advances, 12 (2022) 105108. [4] L. Ratke, A. Rege, S. Aney, The Effect of Particle Necks on the Mechanical Properties of Aerogels, Materials, 16 (2022).