Reconstruction of Closed-cell Polymer Foam Structure

Reconstruction of Closed-cell Polymer Foam Structure 

This work was motivated by the need to quantify the pentane vapor diffusion through closed-cell polystyrene foam (Salejova et al., 2005). Once the polystyrene foam is formed, the pentane as the blowing agent has to diffuse out from the cellular microstructure and is replaced by air. Freshly foamed polystyrene is not dimensionally stable and it shrinks as it relaxes on the timescale of days to weeks. Environmental concerns call for the reduced consumption of pentane as the blowing agent. 

The Voronoi regions correspond to cells in a computer-generated foam structure. Examples of cellular structures generated by Voronoi tessellation are shown in Fig. 17. 

The volume of cells is calculated as the number of voxels i belonging to each Voronoi region Vj, times the voxel volume h3, where h is voxel size. The symbol 

Computer generated structure of hexagonal and random closed-cell foam obtained by Voronoi tessellation, shown as voxel representation of phase function (left), and network diagram where nodes correspond to cells and bonds to cell walls (from Salejova et ah, 2005). 

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B. Reconstruction of Closed-cell Polymer Foam Structure 179... 

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