Original article

Journal of Cellular Plastics

2024, Vol. 60(1) 59–78
Constitutive modeling and © The Author(s) 2023
Article reuse guidelines:
simulation of polyethylene sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/0021955X231224769
journals.sagepub.com/home/cel
foam under quasi-static and
impact loading

Zhiqiang Fu1 , Wujie Zhang1, Tong Zhao1, Yan Wang2,

Liying Duan3 and Haozhe Liu1

Abstract
In this paper, quasi-static and dynamic compression experiments were carried out on
polyethylene foam by a universal material testing machine and a drop tower impact
device. The mechanical response characteristics and energy absorption capacity of
polyethylene foam under quasi-static and moderate strain rate (4 × 10
3–102s
1) loading
conditions were obtained. An improved constitutive model of strain-rate term coupling
strain and strain rate was established based on the Sherwood–Frost phenomenological
constitutive model and Johnson–Cook constitutive model. Low Density Foam model
combined in the finite element software ABAQUS with the improved constitutive model
was used as the parameter definition of polyethylene foam material in the simulation. The
drop-tower impact tests at different heights were simulated, and the simulation results
were compared with the actual drop tower impact test results. The results showed that
the peak acceleration errors between simulation and experiment were less than 7.1%,
verifying the accuracy of the constitutive model. This study provides a method of
constitutive models and finite element simulation to the performance of polymer foams.

Keywords
Polyethylene foam, quasi-static and dynamic compression, strain rate effect, energy
absorption, constitutive model, ABAQUS

1
School of Light Industry Science and Engineering, Tianjin University of Science and Technology, Tianjin, China
2
College of Mechanical Engineering, Tianjin University of Science and Technology, Tianjin, China
3
Department of Transportation and Vehicle Engineering, Tangshan University, Tangshan, China

Corresponding author:
Zhiqiang Fu, School of Light Industry Science and Engineering, Tianjin University of Science and Technology,
No. 29, 13th Street, Tianjin Economic and Technological Development Zone, Tianjin 300222, China.
Email: fzq6670300@163.com
60 Journal of Cellular Plastics 60(1)

Introduction

Products are often subjected to falling, impact, vibration, and other external effects in the
transport process.1 Cushioning energy absorption materials are widely used to avoid
damage to products in the transport process.2 Polyethylene foam is a kind of polymer
closed-cell foam material that is widely used as a cushioning energy absorption material
for electronic products, porcelain, and other products due to its light weight, strong energy
absorption capacity, and strong resilience.3–7
Polymer foams exhibit different mechanical properties under various compression
loading rates.8–10 At present, most studies have focused on the mechanical properties of
polymer foam under quasi-static compression (material strain rate: 10
4–10
1 s
1) and
high-speed impact (material strain rate will exceed 102 s
1) through universal material
testing machine and the Hopkinson bar.11–15 The strain rate of dynamic deformation
caused by falling or collision during transportation of polymer foams is at intermediate
strain rate, but a limited number of research have been on the mechanical properties of
polymer foam within the range of intermediate strain rate (1 s
1 to 102 s
1).16–18 Chen16
obtained the dynamic mechanical characteristics of two kinds of expanded polystyrene
(EPS) at intermediate strain rates of 2–280 s
1 using an INSTRON experimental machine.
According to experimental data, the empirical relationships of dynamic strength, Young’s
modulus, and energy absorption of EPS at different strain rates were obtained. Tateyama17
obtained the mechanical response of polyethylene foam film at intermediate strain rate by
using the drop-tower impact device. Through X-ray computed tomography images and
Schlieren images, they revealed the structural deformation characteristics and gas flow of
bubbles during the impact process. Yang18 used an improved drop-tower impact device
and shock tube device to impact polyethylene foam. The energy absorption capacity of
polyethylene foam under different loading rates was evaluated, and the loading rate was
considered to have a significant impact on energy density. However, these studies mainly
revealed the strain rate effect of polymer foam materials through experiments, and the
stress–strain constitutive model at intermediate strain rate was not constructed to describe
the mechanical response of polyethylene foam in the whole deformation stage under
impact load.
Numerous researchers have proposed constitutive models to describe the mechanical
properties of polymer foam materials.19–22 The most representative models were the
Sherwood–Frost and Johnson–Cook constitutive models. Sherwood and Frost23 studied
the uniaxial compression properties of polyurethane foam; density and temperature were
considered on the basis of previous studies, and a more comprehensive phenomenological
compression constitutive relationship framework for polymer foam materials was pro-
posed. In the Sherwood–Frost constitutive model, the strain rate term refers to the research
results of Nagy.24 In Nagy’s work, only the stress variation of polyurethane foam at
0–0.5 strain was studied. However, polymer foams may experience a large strain when used
as cushioning pads. In addition, a number of researchers have used the Johnson–Cook
model to describe the strain rate effect in the constitutive relationship of polymer foam.24,25
Johnson and Cook26 established the Johnson–Cook constitutive model considering the
Fu et al. 61

influence of strain rate and temperature when studying the plastic flow yield behavior of
metal materials under high-speed impact. However, the metal material is an elastic–plastic
material, and the micro-structure deformation mechanism of polymer foam material is
different from that of metals.20 Whether its model can accurately describe the mechanical
properties of polymer foam remains to be discussed.
On the other hand, finite element analysis is increasingly used to evaluate the pro-
tective effect of cushioning pads in the dynamic drop process. At present, when polymer
foam cushioning materials are used as cushioning pads for package drop simulation, the
stress–strain data obtained by polymer foam under quasi-static state are mostly used as
material parameters for simulation calculation.2,27,28 Mills27 established two kinds of
polyethylene foam cushioning pads with complex structures in ABAQUS software,
simulated multiple falls of packaging parts using these two kinds of cushioning pads, and
evaluated the cushioning effect. Ozturk28 carried out the finite element simulation of
multiple compression loading and unloading of polystyrene foam for packaging and
obtained the cushioning curve after single and multiple loadings. Lu2 constructed the
constitutive model of polyethylene foam under multiple loading and unloading conditions
by hyperbolic function and simulated the mechanical response of polyethylene foam
continuous multiple drops using the hyper foam model and Mullins effect in ABAQUS
software. However, the material model of foam used in these works was independent of
the strain rate but dependent on the experimental data and was not defined by the
constitutive model. It is noteworthy that the constitutive model of materials is not only the
basis for understanding the mechanical behavior of materials but also a necessary
condition for numerical simulation.29–31
In this work, the compressive mechanical properties of polyethylene foam at inter-
mediate and low strain rates were studied. Constitutive model including low and medium
strain rates is established based on Sherwood–Frost and Johnson–Cook constitutive models.
The constructed constitutive model can accurately describe the stress response of poly-
ethylene foam under quasi-static and impact loads with a large strain. Finally, the drop tower
impact test was simulated by using the constitutive model and the Low Density Foam model
in ABAQUS finite element software, and the results were verified and analyzed.

Experimental work
In the experimental work, the polyethylene foam with nominal density of 20 kg/m3 (the
materials were manufactured by Anhui Bromake New Materials Co., Ltd) was used as the
test object.
The size of polyethylene foam sample was 100 × 100 × 45 mm3 (length × width ×
thickness). The prepared specimen was pretreated at a constant temperature and humidity
incubator for 24 h before the experiment. Temperature and humidity were set at 23°C and
50% relative humidity, respectively.
To study the strain rate sensitivity of polyethylene foam, we carried out quasi-static
compression and a drop tower test in the main direction (perpendicular to the foam plate) to
obtain the mechanical response of polyethylene foam at intermediate and low strain rates.
62 Journal of Cellular Plastics 60(1)

Quasi-static compression test

The quasi-static compression test was carried out on the Instron 3369 universal material
testing machine. The loading heads of the device were compressed at speeds of 12, 120,
360, and 480 mm/min, which corresponded to material strain rates of 4 × 10
3, 4 × 10
2,
0.12, and 0.16 s
1, respectively. These tests were conducted thrice for each strain rate.

Intermediate rate compression test

The motion process of drop tower impacting polyethylene foam is shown in Figure 1,
where H is the drop height, l is the thickness of polyethylene foam, m is the mass of mass
block, and xðtÞ is the deformation thickness of the foam.
The impact mass block was released at the H height, and the time when the mass block
fell to the foam was set as 0.
The motion equation of mass block was shown in equation (1):
xðtÞ ¼ FðtÞ
mg
m€ (1)

where m is the mass of impact mass block, kg. x€ðtÞ is the impact mass response ac-
celeration, m=s2 ; FðtÞ is the force on mass, N. g is the gravity acceleration, m/s2.
The stress produced by impact force of polyethylene foam was σðtÞ:
FðtÞ
σðtÞ ¼ (2)
Aarea
where Aarea is the contact area between polyethylene foam and mass block.
The static stress of impact mass on polyethylene foam was σ 0 :

Figure 1. Schematic of mass block impacting polyethylene foam process.

Fu et al. 63

mg
σ0 ¼ (3)
Aarea
Substituting equations (1) and (3) into equations (2) and (4) was obtained:


x€ðtÞ
σðtÞ ¼ σ 0 þ1 (4)
g

The acceleration obtained by the sensor was expressed as dimensionless G of the

multiple of g:
x€ðtÞ
G¼ (5)
g

Substituting equation (5) into equations (4) and (6) can be obtained:
σðtÞ ¼ σ 0 ðG þ 1Þ (6)

The strain response of polyethylene foam was obtained by equation (7):

Z t
_ ¼ x_0

xðtÞ x€dt (7)
0

where x_0 is the velocity of the drop tower when it contacted with the foam.
The deformation of the foam was obtained by equation (8):
Z t
xðtÞ ¼ _
xðtÞdt (8)
0

where xðtÞ is deformation of the foam at every time.

The strain of the foam was obtained by equation (9):
xðtÞ
εðtÞ ¼ (9)
l
where εðtÞ is the strain of the foam at every time.
When the drop tower contacted with the foam, the initial strain rate was obtained by
equation (10).
Δε xðtÞ x_0
ε_ initial ¼ lim ¼ lim ¼ (10)
Δt → 0 Δt Δt → 0 lΔt l
The drop-tower impact test has been widely used for the characterization of inter-
mediate strain rate impact properties of foams.32–34 In this work, the impact test of
polyethylene foam was carried out by using the drop-tower test device. The drop-tower
impact device (DY-3, Shaanxi university of science and technology) is mainly composed
of a mass block, two slide rails (the mass block moves linearly along it), an acceleration
sensor, a signal converter, a high-speed camera group, and a computer (Figure 2).
64 Journal of Cellular Plastics 60(1)

Figure 2. Schematic of the drop-tower impact device.

In accordance with the ASTM D1596 standard test method for dynamic impact
cushioning characteristics of packaging materials, the drop heights were set as 460, 660,
760, and 970 mm. The experiment was repeated five times at the same height. The mass
block was 7.93 kg.
The errors between the velocity of mass block and theoretical calculation are due to the
friction resistance and air resistance between the mass block and the sliding rail. A high-
speed camera (Motion Pro YL-4) was used to correct the impact velocity of the mass
block. The initial velocity of the mass block captured by the high-speed camera at the
impact heights of 460, 660, 760, and 970 mm were 2710, 3340, 3670, and 4210 mm/s,
respectively.
The dynamic compression deformation process of polyethylene foam during impact was
shown in Figure 3 by the high-speed camera when the height of mass block was 760 mm.
The stress–strain response of polyethylene foam under drop-tower impact load was
calculated by equations (6) and (9). The acceleration–time curve of the mass block at
760 mm drop impact heigh was shown in Figure 4(a). The stress–strain curve of
polyethylene foam was shown in Figure 4(b).
Fu et al. 65

Figure 3. Dynamic compression deformation process of polyethylene foam captured by high-

speed camera.

Figure 4. (a) Acceleration–time curve and (b) stress–strain curve.

Construction of the constitutive model

The constitutive model with the strain rate effect was constructed based on the exper-
imental results of the polyethylene foam under quasi-static compression and drop-tower
impact loading. The Nagy model and Johnson–Cook constitutive model were improved.
Sherwood–Frost constitutive model framework was used, as shown in equation (11).
σ c ¼ f ðεÞGðρÞHðT ÞM ðε, ε_ Þ (11)

where σ c is stress, f(ε) is a shape function term, G(ρ) is the density term, M ðε, ε_ Þ is the
strain rate terms, and H(T) is the environmental temperature term. The effects of strain,
density, temperature, and strain rate on stress are separable functions in Sherwood–Frost
constitutive model framework.
The strain rate term of Nagy35 was applied in the Sherwood–Frost constitutive model.
The influence of strain and strain rate on stress cannot be decoupled. The strain rate term is
defined as follows:

NðεÞ
ε_
MN ðε, ε_ Þ ¼ (12)
ε_ 0

where ε_ is the strain rate under arbitrary conditions, ε_ 0 is the reference strain rate, i.e., the
strain rate under quasi-static compression. N ðεÞ is the function of strain under MN ðε, ε_ Þ.
66 Journal of Cellular Plastics 60(1)

The Johnson–Cook constitutive model is composed of three parts, which characterize

the strain hardening, strain rate strengthening, and thermal softening effect of materials
(equation (13)).
 
ε_


T
T0
m 
σ eq ¼ A þ Bεeq 1 þ Cln
n
1
(13)
ε_ 0 Tm
T0

where σ eq is equivalent plastic stress, A is the initial yield strength of the material, B is the
material strengthening coefficient, εeq is the equivalent plastic strain, n is the material
strengthening index, C is the fitting coefficient of strain rate term, T is the temperature of
the material in actual use, Tm is the melting temperature of the material; T0 is the reference
temperature for materials; m is the fitting parameter of temperature.
In this paper, the thermal softening effect of materials is ignored. The equation (13) is
simplified as equation (14):
 
ε_

σ eq ¼ A þ Bεneq 1 þ Cln (14)
ε_ 0

Construction of shape function term

A polynomial function was used to describe the shape function in the Sherwood–Frost
model. In this work, the polynomial function was used to describe the stress–strain curve
of materials as a shape function:
Xn
f ðεÞ ¼ i¼1
Ai εi þ B0 (15)

where ε is strain, and Ai and B0 are unknown parameters.

In equation (15), the stress and strain data were fitted with uniaxial compression
experiments at 4 × 10
3 s
1 (Figure 5). The value range of i in Ai ranges from 1 to 3. The
fitting values of unknown parameters Ai and B0 are shown in Table 1. The R-square value
was 0.99,606.

Construction strain rate term

The influence of strain rate on the stress. The stress–strain data of polyethylene foam at 4 ×
10
3, 4 × 10
2, 0.12, and 0.16 s
1 strain rates were obtained by quasi-static compression
test, and the stress–strain data of polyethylene foam at 66.7, 80, 85.78, and 96.89 s
1
strain rates were obtained by drop-tower impact device in Figure 6.
A typical stress–strain relationship for polyethylene foam at different strain rates was
shown in Figure 6. There is an obvious difference between the stress of the material at the
impact strain rate and the stress at the quasi-static strain rate. As for cellular materials, the
strain rate sensitivity had been attributed to many different parameters, such as viscoelasticity
and the heterogeneity of microstructure.14 At slow strain rates, the stress was related to the
heterogeneity of microstructure. However, at high strain rates, the stress was related to the
Fu et al. 67

Figure 5. Fitting of shape function to experiment data.

Table 1. Parameter values in the shape function.

Parameter Value

B0 0
A1 0.29877
A2
1.05799
A3 1.6056

Figure 6. Stress–strain curves of polyethylene foam at different strain rates.

68 Journal of Cellular Plastics 60(1)

viscoelasticity.14 As for the cell structure of cellular materials, the plastic deformation or
fracture under quasi-static stress appeared, however, elastic deformation occurred before and
after the impact test.18
The relationship between stress and logarithm of strain rate under the range of 0.2-0.7 strain
was shown in Figure 7. The R-square of linear fitting of the relationship between stress and
strain rate logarithm for polyethylene foams was above 0.98, indicating that the logarithm of
strain rate and stress was linear in the range of 4 × 10
3–102s
1strain rate at the same strain.

The influence of strain rate on energy absorption. The change in the energy absorption of
polyethylene foam caused by strain rate effect was also calculated. The strain energy
density was used to measure the energy absorption (Figure 8). The calculation for the
energy density is as follow in equation (16).
Z εm
e¼ σdε (16)
0

In Figure 8, the energy density of polyethylene foam under quasi-static and dynamic
impact was significantly different. Compared with quasi-static compression, the cellular
materials keep high energy dissipation until the lockup strain in dynamic
compression.8,36,37 The R-square of linear fitting in the relationship between strain energy
density and strain rate logarithm under different strain rates in various strains was above
0.95, indicating that the strain energy density and logarithmic strain rate under different
strain rates were also linear in the range of 4 × 10
3–102 s
1strain rate at the same strain.

Figure 7. Relationship between stress and logarithm of strain rate under different strains.
Fu et al. 69

Figure 8. (a) Relationship between energy density and strain of polyethylene foam at different
strain rates. (b) Relationship between energy density and logarithm of strain rate.

Construction the strain rate term. According to equation (11), the density and temperature
terms were not studied in this paper, the constitutive model with the strain rate is rep-
resented by equation (17):
σ c ¼ f ðεÞM ðε, ε_ Þ (17)

The strain rate term is the ratio of stress to reference stress (equation (18)):
σ
Mðε, ε_ Þ ¼ (18)
f ðεÞ

Based on Nagy and Figure 7, the influence of strain and strain rate on stress cannot
be decoupled. The strain rate strengthening in Johnson-Cook model is modified as
equation (19).


ε_
MJ ðε, ε_ Þ ¼ 1 þ CðεÞln (19)
ε_ 0

The relationship between the strain rate ratio and stress ratio under the 0.1, 0.5 and
0.7 strain is described by the Nagy and Johnson–Cook models as shown in Figure 9.
As shown in Figure 9, the parameter (NðεÞ) of Nagy model and the parameter (CðεÞ) of
Johnson-Cook model are different when the strain rate ratio was at 50-10,000. Therefore,
the relationships between the parameters of two models and strain are shown in Figure 10.
The parameters of Nagy and Johnson–Cook models are related to strain, and the stress is
affected by the strain and strain rate coupling. The relationships between the parameters of
two models and strain were both expressed by exponential function, as shown in
equations (20) and (21).

N ðεÞ ¼ aN þ bN eε=cN (20)

CðεÞ ¼ aJ þ bJ eε=cJ
70 Journal of Cellular Plastics 60(1)

Figure 9. Fitting of the relationship between stress ratio and strain rate ratio by Nagy and
Johnson–Cook models.

Figure 10. Relationship between parameters and strain in (a) Nagy and (b) Johnson–Cook models.
Fu et al. 71

Where, a is the value of ratio between stress and logarithm of strain rate at the initial strain.
b is the fitting parameter. c is the initial strain.
The values of parameters a, b and c in equations (20) and (21) are as shown in Table 2.
Submitting equations (12), (15), and (20) to equation (11), the Nagy model is revised as
follows:
!
Xn aþbe
ε=c
σ cðNÞ ¼ i¼1
Ai ε þ B ð_ε=_ε0 Þ
i
(21)

According to equations (14), (15), (19), and (21), J-C model is modified as follows:
!
Xn 
σ cðJÞ ¼ i¼1
A iε þ B
i
1 þ a þ be
ε=c lnð_ε=_ε0 Þ (22)

A method for the stress–strain relationship under an arbitrary strain rate is proposed by
introducing the proportional factor. The constitutive model is constructed with shape
function and strain rate term by the method. In the finite element simulation software
(such as ABAQUS, LS-DYNA), the stress–strain characteristics of different the strain
rates were used to describe the deformation progress of materials. Although this ap-
proximation is a rough explanation of physical behavior, satisfactory results are obtained
in most engineering applications.10,23,27

Verification of constitutive model in finite element model

Establishment of finite element model
The commercial software ABAQUS (version 2019) was used to simulate the dynamic
compression process of polyethylene foam in the drop-tower impact test. ABAQUS
software provides a variety of material models for different types of foam. The Low-
Density Foam model was used to simulate the mechanical properties of polyethylene
foam. This model is suitable for high-compressible elastic foam with low density and
evident rate-sensitive behavior.38 The interpolation was performed in the solving based on
the logarithmic relationship between stress and strain rate.38 This was consistent with the
relationship between the stress and strain rate of polyethylene foam in Figure 7.
According to equations (21) and (22), Nagy model and Johnson-Cook model can
accurately describe the mechanical properties of polyethylene foam. In this work, the

Table 2. Values of parameters a, b and c in equations (20) and (21).

Model Parameter a Parameter b (E) Parameter c

Nagy 0.05502 1.58107-5 0.1

J-C 0.07494 2.6737-5 0.1
72 Journal of Cellular Plastics 60(1)

stress–strain response of polyethylene foam under different strain rates was obtained by
the constitutive model in equation (21). This model was directly applied to the Low
Density Foam model as shown in Figure 11.
The impact heights were 460, 660, 760 and 970 mm, and the mass block was 7.93 kg. The
simulation model was shown in Figure 12. The display dynamics was used to analyze. The
convergence method was ‘Newton method’ and the residual error was set 5 × 10
3.38 The size
of block and ground were both 200 mm × 200 mm, and the thicknesses were 10 mm. The
ground and block mass were set discrete grid.31 The size of foam was 100 mm × 100 mm, and
the thickness was 50 mm. The material of foam was set EPE. The element type of the model
was C3D8R and hexahedron. The mesh size of ground and mass block mass did not deform
and were both set 5 mm. The mesh size of foam was set 2 mm. The expansion coefficient of
each part was set as 5 layers, and the height ratio was set as 1.2. The ground was fixed, the
contact with EPE and block mass was surface-to-surface discretization, and the velocities of
the mass block were 3000, 3600, 3860 and 4320 mms
1.

Comparison and analysis of simulation results and experiments

The simulation results were compared with the experimental under the same working
condition, as shown in Figure 13. The error of peak acceleration between simulation and
experiment was as equation (23). The results were shown in Table 3.

Figure 11. Stress–strain curves at different strain rates from the constitutive model.
Fu et al. 73

Figure 12. Three-dimensional simulation model.

Figure 13. Acceleration–time curves obtained by experiment and finite element simulation ((a)
460, (b) 660, (c) 760, and (d) 970 mm impact heights).
74 Journal of Cellular Plastics 60(1)

asimulation
aexperiment
error ¼ × 100% (23)
aexperiment

where, asimulation is peak acceleration of simulation result, m/s2. aexperiment is the peak
acceleration of experiment result, m/s2.

Table 3. Results of simulation and experiments.

Peak Errors of
acceleration/g Peak experimental and Errors of
(Simulation: acceleration/g simulation results experimental and
Peak Without (Simulation: (without simulation results
Height/ acceleration/g considering Considering considering strain (considering
mm (Experiment) strain rate) strain rate) rate) (%) strain rate) (%)

460 52.40 60.32 53.52 15.1 2.1

660 76.28 110.35 81.69 44.7 7.1
760 98.69 149.37 100.19 51.4 1.5
970 109.55 299.48 114.77 173.3 4.8

Figure 14. Stress–strain results of polyethylene foam obtained by experiment and finite element
simulation ((a) 460, (b) 660, (c) 760, and (d) 970 mm impact heights).
Fu et al. 75

In Figure 13 and Table 3, when the impact heights were 460, 660, 760 and 970 mm, the
errors between the simulation results without considering the strain rate and experimental
results were 15.1%, 44.7%, 51.4% and 173.3%. The errors between simulation con-
sidering strain rate and experimental results were 2.1%, 7.1%, 1.5% and 4.8%, indicating
that the strain rate was not ignored. With the impact heights increase, the influence of
strain rate on peak acceleration increase.
The errors of the stress–strain curves between experiment and FEM were obtained at
different impact heights as shown in Figure 14. When the impact heights were 460, 660,
760, and 970 mm, the maximum errors were 1.093%, 3.532%, 2.583%, and 3.176%. With
the strain increase, the errors between experiment and FEM with strain rate results in-
crease, indicating that this model can predict well drop-tower impact progress under small
strain.
When the strain rate effect of polyethylene foam was not considered in the simulation,
the peak acceleration obtained by impact simulation was different from the experimental
data. The polyethylene foam has evident strain rate-strengthening effect under impact
load. The simulation results of polyethylene foam model defined by constitutive model
with the strain rate were consist with the experimental results, verifying the accuracy of
strain-rate constitutive model and Low Density Foam model.

Conclusions
The stress–strain response and energy absorption capacity under quasi-static compression
and drop-tower impact were investigated. The constitutive model considering the strain
rate effect was constructed and applied to the finite element simulation of drop-tower
impact. The following conclusions can be drawn from this study:

a. Polyethylene foam shows a certain degree of strain rate sensitivity. The stress of
polyethylene foam at intermediate and low strain rates (10
4–102 s
1) is linear
with the logarithm of strain rate, and the strain energy density was also linear with
the logarithm of strain rate.
b. The relationship between parameters and strain coupling strain ratio in Nagy and
Johnson–Cook models was improved. The improved constitutive models are
accuracy for the stress–strain relationship of polyethylene foam in the strain rate
range of 4 × 10
3–102 s
1.
c. The errors of peak acceleration between the experiments and the finite element
simulation with strain rate effect were less than 7.1%, verifying the accuracy of
strain-rate constitutive model and simulation model.

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/
or publication of this article.
76 Journal of Cellular Plastics 60(1)

Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or
publication of this article: This work was supported by the Tianjin Municipal Education Com-
mission (NO. 2019KJ209).

ORCID iD
Zhiqiang Fu  https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4198-4539

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