Shock compression of polyurethane foams

¹ Shock and Detonation Physics, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM 87545, USA
² Theoretical Division, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM 87545, USA

Abstract

Several shock studies have been made on polyurethane materials, both fully dense and distended in the form of foams. However, there is a lack of shock data between the densities of 0.321 and 1.264g/cm³ (fully dense). We present here data obtained from two different types of shock experiments at densities of 0.35, 0.5, 0.68, 0.78, and 0.9g/cm³ in order to fill in the density deficiencies and make it easier to develop an unreacted equation of state (EOS) for polyurethane as a function of density. A thermodynamically consistent EOS was developed, based on the Helmholtz free energy, and was used to predict the shock properties of polyurethane materials at densities from 1.264 to 0.348g/cm³. These estimates are compared to the available data. The data match quite close to the predictions and provide a basis for calculating polyurethane foam shock processes. Chemical reaction has been observed at relatively high pressure (21.7 GPa) in fully dense polyurethane in an earlier study, and the equation of state presented here is representative of the unreacted polyurethane foam. Lowering the density is expected to drop the shock pressure for chemical reaction, yet there is not enough data to address the low density shock reaction thresholds in this study.