Polymeric foams are widely used in many industrial fields as thermal insulators, structural materials or shock wave mitigators. Polymeric foams would be valuable candidates to protect structures against intense mechanical stress wave loadings generated by laser irradiation or high velocity impact of very small debris. This article presents the results of laser-driven shock experiments performed on polymeric foams to investigate their mitigation ability. The targets consisted of thin aluminum

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... of thin aluminum front plate (250 µm-thickness), 1 mm and 2 mm-thick samples made of expanded polyurethane foam (320 kg/m 3 ) or syntactic epoxy foam (624 kg/m 3 ), and 12 µm-thick aluminum foil. The laser beam provided 20 J in 25 ns and was shot through water confinement of the front plate. The dynamic responses of the foams were investigated by measuring time-velocity profiles at the rear surface. Preliminary tests were performed on thin aluminum plate in order to calibrate the stress wave loadings. A dynamic explicit one-dimensional hydrocode was used to simulate the experiments and validate the calibration of pressure generated under laser irradiation. Then, the numerical simulations were used to analyze the velocity profiles recorded at the rear surface of both foams. The dynamic macroscopic response of the foams was described by a phenomenological compaction model. The model has been validated by numerical correlations with the experimental results. The input pressure (front aluminum plate) and the output one (fictitious PMMA plate placed behind foam samples) were compared by help of numerical simulations. The ratio between input and output pressures could achieve 75. Polyurethane foam better mitigated shock waves below 2 GPa, and epoxy foam was better above 2 GPa.