Thermomechanical response of metal foam sandwich panels for structural thermal protection systems in hypersonic vehicles

Sandwich panels with metal foam cores are proposed for load-bearing structural components in actively cooled thermal protection systems for aerospace vehicles. Prototype acreage metal foam sandwich panels (MFSP's) are constructed and analyzed with the central goal of characterizing the thermomechanical response of the system. MFSP's are subjected to uniform temperature fields and equibiaxial loading in a novel experimental load frame. The load frame exploits the mismatch of coefficients of thermal expansion and allows for thermostructural experimentation without the endemic conflict of thermal and mechanical boundary conditions. Back-to-back strain gages and distributed thermocouples capture the in-plane response of the panels, including buckling and elastic-plastic post-buckling. The out-of-plane response is captured via moire interferometry, which provides a visualization of evolving mode shapes throughout the post-buckling regime. The experimental results agree with an analytical prediction for critical temperatures in sandwich panels based on a Rayleigh-Ritz minimization of the energy functional for a Reissner-Mindlin plate. In addition, a three-dimensional finite element model of the non-linear thermomechanical response of the panel-frame experimental system is developed and the results are shown to agree well with the experimentally identified response of MFSP's. Central to analytical and numerical characterization of MFSP's is an understanding of the response of metal foam under shear loading. The shear response of metal foam is captured experimentally, providing density-dependent relationships for material stiffness, strength, and energy absorption. Speckle photography is employed to identify microstructural size effects in the distribution of strain throughout metal foam under shear loading. In addition, a micromechanical model is established for the density-dependent shear modulus of metal foam, which allows for the coupling of cell-level imperfections with unit cell response. Through experiments, MFSP's are subjected to dynamic through-the-thickness thermal gradients, constrained deformation, and active cooling. In capturing the response of the cooled and uncooled panels, control and actuation of thermostructural deformation in actively cooled MFSP's is demonstrated. The finite element model of the panel-frame system is extended to the actively cooled experiments and is shown to agree well with the experimental results.