Dynamic and damping behaviour of a sandwich-structured hoof shoe with aluminium foam core

This study presents a lightweight sandwich-structured hoof shoe designed to specifically improve stiffness, load sharing, and dynamic response. The composite structure consists of 1 mm SS 304 stainless steel face plates bonded to a 10 mm aluminium foam core. To evaluate its performance against conventional solid stainless-steel options, the design underwent a combination of quasi-static mechanical testing, modal analysis, damping assessment, and validated finite element simulations. Results indicated that the stainless-steel face sheets exhibited a tensile strength of 769 MPa, while the aluminium foam core showed a compressive strength of 407 MPa. The sandwich structure achieved a compressive strength of 631 MPa, representing a 55% improvement over the core alone, with a characteristic elastic–plateau–densification stress–strain response. Experimental and numerical modal analyses showed close agreement, with a maximum deviation of 2.02% for the sandwich shoe and 2.28% for the solid stainless-steel shoe. The sandwich shoe exhibited a higher first natural frequency (66.12 Hz) compared to the solid shoe (43.01 Hz). Damping evaluation demonstrated superior vibration energy dissipation, indicated by a higher logarithmic decrement (0.784), damping ratio (0.1248), and loss factor (0.184), along with a lower Q-factor (3.247). The sandwich configuration achieved up to 80% weight reduction. Static analysis under uniform pressure simulating vertical ground reaction force confirmed favourable stress distribution and structural stability. Overall, the sandwich hoof shoe shows improved vibration control and reduced mass, making it a promising alternative for equine footwear, particularly for load-carrying applications.