Investigations of a closed-cell foam with scanning electron microscopy

Foams belong to the most important class of packaging materials. They are part of a special group of heterogeneous materials that demonstrate nonlinear viscoelastic behaviour. When used as cushioning materials, their damping behaviour is a function of the static load. Microscopic investigations reveal that these nonlinearities observed on the macro scale are an attribute of special deformation processes of micromechanical dimensions.