Investigations on anisotropic fracture mechanics of graphitic foams

This work investigates destructive (crush) compressive and shear behaviour of Poco-HTC™, which is a porous graphitic carbon foam. This material is anisotropic, and compressive measurements were made in both out-of-plane and in-plane directions. A camera filmed the tests to visually study crack formation and growth at macro-scale. Scanning electron microscopy images of fracture surfaces were recorded to examine post-failure material formation at micro- and meso-scales. In another series of tests, cyclic uniaxial compression measurements were performed in the elastic regime to characterise this behavior. Some of the samples were crushed after the cyclic test to measure strength.