Mechanical properties of Monofilament entangled materials

A new type of architectured materials, namely « monofilament entangled materials », were studied in order to have a better understanding of their behavior under compressive loading and damping. The materials studied in this paper were made of an entanglement of a single steel wire. Their complex internal architecture was investigated using X-ray computed tomography. The evolution of the number of contacts per unit of volume, as well as of the density profile, were followed during the compression test in order to compare it to the mechanical results. Dynamical Mechanical Analysis (DMA) was performed to characterize the evolution of the loss factor of this material with the frequency and the volume fraction. It was shown that this material present an interesting strength/loss factor ratio. A discrete element model was proposed to model the mechanical properties of this material.