NUMERICAL AND EXPERIMENTAL STUDIES ON THE COMPRESSIVE MECHANICAL PROPERTIES OF METALLIC HEMISPHERE SHELLS

A metallic hollow sphere structure is a new type of porous metal materials. The research of compressive mechanical properties of a metallic hemisphere shell is a foundation work. It contributes to the study of mechanical properties of the whole material. Based on the quasi-static compression experiments of metallic hemisphere shells loaded by a rigid sphere, a rigid plate, and three kinds of rigid cylinders, the deformation morphologies and mechanical properties are obtained, and the deformation rules of shells compressed by different pressure heads are discussed. Their mechanical properties are analyzed by numerical simulation under the models corresponding to experiments. It is found that the yield limit and elastic modulus of metallic hemisphere shells are independent to the cross area of a plane head. The buckling stress increases with the increase of the cross area of a cylinder. And the energy absorbing decreases with the decrease of the contact area between a shell and a pressure head.