Prediction of compressive properties of closed-cell aluminum foam using artificial neural network

The design of artificial neural network (ANN) is motivated by analogy of highly complex, non-linear and parallel computing power of the brain. Once a neural network is significantly trained it can predict the output results in the same knowledge domain. In the present work, ANN models are developed for the simulation of compressive properties of closed-cell aluminum foam: plateau stress, Young’s modulus and energy absorption capacity. The input variables for these models are relative density, average pore diameter and cell anisotropy ratio. Database of these properties are the results of the compression tests carried out on aluminum foams at a constant strain rate of 1 × 10⁻³ s⁻¹. The prediction accuracy of all the three models is found to be satisfactory. This work has shown the excellent capability of artificial neural network approach for the simulation of the compressive properties of closed-cell aluminum foam.