Static behaviour of 3D porous metal foam shells

Abstract

<title>Abstract</title> Metal foams represent a groundbreaking generation of composite materials, distinguished by their high surface area-to-volume ratio and exceptional properties including porosity, lightweight construction, and heightened thermal conductivity, making them indispensable across industries such as thermal management, filtration, catalysis, and energy storage due to their remarkable versatility and performance capabilities. The study focuses on overcoming challenges in theoretical research related to the modelling of complex structures. It introduces a more accurate approach to model novel tri-directionally-coated porous structures with varying microstructures, incorporating intrinsic characteristic lengths and spatial variations in material properties. The study examines the static behaviour of multidirectional functionally graded porous metal foam shells, employing higher-order shear deformation theory and the principle of virtual work. The investigation utilizes the Galerkin method to address various boundary conditions. Two types of porous shells, categorized as Softcore (SC) and Hardcore (HC), are analyzed, with five distribution patterns: tri-directional (Type-A), two bidirectional (Type-B and Type-C), transverse unidirectional (Type-D), and axial unidirectional (Type-E).