Investigations on the influence of the triaxial state of stress on the failure of polyurethane rigid foams

This paper investigates the failure strain as a dependence of the stress triaxiality and the Lode angle parameter for polyurethane rigid foams (PUR) of two densities (100 and \(300\,\hbox {kg/m}^{3})\). Tests were carried out in tension for various configurations, resulting in different states of stress triaxiality at various Lode angles in the critical areas. The failure strain was determined for each setup using finite element analysis, as the tests were replicated with numerical models. The displacement at failure recorded in the experiments was imposed for the models, determining the failure strain as a function of stress triaxiality and the Lode angle parameter. The results were validated through the analysis of the failure of sandwich structures with aluminium faces and PUR cores.