Experimental and numerical analyses of thermal failure of rigid polyurethane foam

Publication date: Available online 25 May 2019Source: Materials Chemistry and PhysicsAuthor(s): Yannan He, Jiacheng Wu, Dacheng Qiu, Zhiqiang YuAbstractHeat treatment of rigid polyurethane foam (RPUF) was performed at different temperature. The failure degrees of treated RPUF were evaluated by the characterization of tensile properties. The failure process and mechanism of RPUF was further analyzed by thermo gravimetric analysis (TGA), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR). Experimental results showed that the untreated RPUF maintained the optimal tensile strength and modulus. After the heat treatment at high temperature, the tensile properties of RPUF decreased with the increase of heat-treated temperature due to the gradual degradation of polyurethane matrix. Numerical simulation indicated that the stress concentration in cellular structure model (CSM) constructed according to the Kerner-Rusch relation gradually intensified with the increase of treatment temperature. In addition, the tensile strength and modulus obtained from CSM were agreement with the experimental results. The computation error of CSM was less than 5% in average compared with the experimental data.Graphical abstract
Source: Materials Chemistry and Physics - Category: Materials Science Source Type: research