Design, optimization and production of impact absorbing porous polymer materials with 3D prototyping technology

The automotive industry is one of the indispensable transportation elements today. According to official figures, more than twenty-one million vehicles in our country are registered to traffic. With the increase in the number of traffic accidents, an increase has been observed in the general framework. According to official figures, an average of 1 million traffic accidents has occurred in our country in recent years. Traffic accidents can occur along with financial damage, as well as loss of life. With these developments, it is revealed that the shock absorbing feature of vehicles is of vital importance. Vehicle manufacturers are also known to work hard on shock absorbing materials. Porous materials are one of the most shock absorbing materials today. Metallic foams are the leading materials. However, metallic foams come to the fore in very high energy accidents and there is a random production as the pore sizes cannot be controlled during production. Energy absorption from metallic foams is not expected in low energy accidents such as vehicle-pedestrian. In this study, it is aimed to improve the shock absorbing properties of the materials used in vehicles in low energy accidents by producing polymer foam materials. While the pore sizes cannot be controlled in the production of polymeric foam made by classical methods, in this study, it will be produced by controlling the pore shapes and sizes thanks to the production with 3D printers, which is one of the popular production methods of today. In addition, the impact absorbing properties of the samples with different sizes and shapes of pore sizes will be analyzed by performing various mechanical tests. Maximum efficiency will be tried to be obtained with the optimization study to be carried out as a result of the analyzes. It is determined that the pore size and cell wall thickness are the main factors affecting the impact resistance of the materials. It has also been found that with the additive manufacturing, the impact absorbing porous structure can be designed and applied in accordance with the area to be used.