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Abstract
Aluminum foam is a critical component of state-of-the-art micrometeoroid and orbital debris shielding. However, its randomly oriented constituent ligaments create significant variability in properties at different length scales. Previous efforts have thoroughly characterized the statistical implications of micro- to macro-scale-length transitions on the homogenized elastic behavior of damage-free, pre–micrometeroid and orbital debris (MMOD) strike structures. In this work, the properties of the residual material post MMOD impact are assessed by introducing cylindrical cavities representing the damage track. It was observed that configuring the cavity parallel to the through-the-thickness direction transformed a nominally isotropic foam into an anisotropic (transverse isotropic) material, weaker in-plane than through-the-thickness. Furthermore, by calculating similarity indices of computed probability distribution functions, we observe that in a substantial fraction of cases local variability arising from the ligamented structure itself is large enough that the elastic moduli of structures with and without cavities are statistically indistinguishable. These findings are evidence that we are able to draw statistics-based conclusions regarding the effect of MMOD impact-inspired defects on the mechanical properties of aluminum foam structures.
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1-1-2026
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
10.1177/10812865261434916
Archival?
Archival
Repository Citation
Seif, Mujan N.; Martin, Alexandre; and Beck, Matthew J., "Stochastic mechanical mesoscale modeling of cylindrical cavities in metallic foams" (2026). Mechanical Engineering Faculty Publications. 112.
https://uknowledge.uky.edu/me_facpub/112
Notes/Citation Information
Publisher Copyright: © The Author(s) 2026. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).