Composite Foam

Summary

UCLA researchers in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering have developed a novel composite foam for impact applications.

Background

Polymeric materials used for impact resistance often strain-harden, causing the skeleton struts and beams to stiffen up, the pores to collapse, and large stress buildup. This results in a sudden drop in the stress of the material with minimal energy absorption and momentum trapping. To circumvent these issues, phase transformation in a material is used as an energy dissipation mechanism, but current state of the art foams (i.e. Poron®) are only efficient at ambient conditions.

Innovation

Researchers led by Professor Vijay Gupta have developed a novel composite foam using preformed lattices. The two-component blend has enhanced impact absorption properties, particularly at higher pressures, making it useful for very high energy impacts. Likewise, this composite foam outperforms Poron® under similar conditions and displays similar impact performance under a wide range of cold and hot temperature conditions (-17 ˚C to 50 ˚C). This composite foam material can be made from organic or inorganic materials and any commercial foam (polyurethanes, D30, polyuria, etc.) can be used.

Applications

• Porous foam for impact applications
• Materials for cushioning or sealing
• Impact protection

Advantages

• Outperforms Poron®
• Excellent performance for a wide range of temperatures (-17 ˚C to 50 ˚C) 
• Efficiently manages incoming impact energy
• Superior impact attenuation properties
• Made from organic or inorganic materials
• Can use commercial foams

State Of Development

Composite foam materials have been fabricated and extensively tested.

Patent Status