The deformation habits of compressed open-cell solid foams

Compressed open-cell solid foams frequently exhibit spatially inhomogeneous distributions of local stretch. The theoretical aspects of this deformatio n habit have not been clearly elucidated. Here we briefly discuss the energ etics of the problem to show that the stretch inhomogeneity stems from the nonconvexity of the underlying potential. We also perform displacement fiel d measurements using the Digital Image Correlation technique, and discuss t he results in light of the theory. [S0094-4289(00)01904-6].