In this study, a series of compressive tests were conducted to examine the stiffness, strength and energy absorption characteristics of the luffa sponge material under quasi-static compressive load. The Young's modulus, compressive strength, densification strain, plateau stress and energy absorption capacity of the luffa sponge material have been obtained for the first time. A set of empirical formulae have been proposed to predict the mechanical properties of luffa sponge material on the macroscopic scale. It should be noted that there is a limitation of our current work, i.e., the luffa sponge material used in our experiment was bleached and laterally squashed initially. The effect of such pre-treatments on the mechanical properties of the luffa sponge is not available and is under further investigation. From our investigation, the following conclusions can be drawn.
(1)
The stress–strain curves show a near constant plateau stress over a long strain range, which is ideal for energy absorption application. It could be used as an alternative packaging material.
(2)
The exponent from our experiments suggests that the deformation of the luffa sponge is determined by the coupling of axial compression/tension and bending of luffa fibres.
(3)
It is found that the luffa sponge material exhibits remarkable stiffness, strength and energy absorption capabilities that are comparable to those of some metallic cellular materials such as aluminium foams and Ni–P microlattices. The strength of luffa sponge is better than most of other available cellular materials in the similar density range such as expended Polystyrene foams and Ni–P microlattices. As an ultra-light cellular material, it has great potential to be used as an environmentally friendly engineering material.