Graded materials have been extensively explored by researchers due to the superior performance compared to their uniform counterpart. Up to now, the exceptional energy absorption of the graded lattice and shell-based structures have been demonstrated. In this work, we experimentally and numerically investigated the effects of different design strategies on the mechanical performance of polymer foams. Our results show that three failure mechanisms dominate the failure of polymer foam, i.e., binder-failure-only, shell-failure-only, and binder-shell-failure. Based on these failure mechanisms, we created three types of graded designs, including graded binder, graded shell thickness, and hybrid graded design. It was found that the specific energy absorption for the hybrid graded polymer foam increases by 125%, 185%, and 34% compared to the uniform poly foam, graded binder foam, and graded thickness foam, respectively. Furthermore, when compared to graded lattice and graded shell-based structures, the specific energy absorption of hybrid graded foam is increased by 141% and 32%, respectively. The findings in our work opens a new avenue to design architected materials with enhanced mechanical properties that can find applications ranging from structural components of defense systems to personal protection equipment.
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