| Abstract Scope |
Energy return in footwear is connected to damping behavior of midsole foams, which stems from the combination of cellular structure and polymeric material behavior. Traditional EVA foams, for example, have been replaced by BOOSTTM foams, which have a multi-scale structure, consisting of porous beads at meso-scale and thousands of small closed cells within beads at micro-scale. In this talk, I will describe experiments and simulations that address the critical link between foam structure and compression behavior of multiscale, high performance foams, by using a three-dimensional (3D) virtual microstructure obtained by lab-scale and x-ray synchrotron tomography. The approach involves capturing the microstructure by novel and sophisticated in situ testing in an x-ray synchrotron, followed by x-ray tomography and image analysis, and 3D reconstruction of the microstructure. The effect of the functionally graded foam microstructure and the effect of strain rate on the damage evolution were studied and will be discussed. |