Thermo-mechanical performance of functionally graded metal rubber: Modeling and experimental characterization

Abstract

As a novel functional material, the functionally graded metal rubber (FGMR) integrates a hierarchical architecture with a spatially varying density gradient, offering tunable thermal mechanical properties. However, the influence of external temperature on thermal behavior of FGMR remains unclear. To address this issue, an effective thermal transfer model is established and correlated with the thermal compression response to elucidate the coupling effect between thermal and mechanical behavior. Moreover, the gradient equation of FGMR is quantitatively extracted from computed tomography (CT) images to accurately characterize the density distribution. The results demonstrate that the proposed models for FGMR effectively capture the interplay between gradient architecture and deformation behavior. The predicted results based on temperature calculated by heat conductivity are more accurate than those using environment temperature. This work provides a quantitative framework for linking gradient architecture to thermal mechanical properties in porous metallic systems, offering guidance for the design and optimization of graded porous materials in thermal protection and energy dissipation applications.