Abstract: Compared with metal foams, polymer foams have additional advantages including thermal insulation, electrical insulation, good resilience and low cost. Under compression loading, polymer foams underwent three stages: linear elasticity, collapse plateau and densification. The collapse plateau has a low stress level and a long strain range and is the main energy absorption stage. With elastic bending and plastic hinges forming, cell walls of polymer foams are damaged and show stress softening phenomenon. In this study, the energy absorption and plastic deformation of three polymer foams with different densities at different loading speeds and multiple loading cycles were experimentally explored. The dependency of their energy absorption capacity and plastic deformation on relative density, strain rate and loading history were investigated.