<p>Open-cell metallic foams have been frequently used as impact energy absorbers in various applications demanding dynamic loading conditions such as artillery firing, ballistic impact, and blast loadings, but their impact-energy-absorbing performance has not been sufficiently evaluated yet. The test setup of split Hopkinson pressure bar (SHPB) was modified in this study by utilizing the incident wave alone, instead of the transmitted wave, to reliably evaluate the energy-absorbing performance of open-cell Ni alloy foams having different pore sizes. According to the stress-time curves obtained from the modified SHPB of the L and S foam specimens having large and small pore sizes (1200&#xa0;μm and 450&#xa0;μm, respectively), the impact momentum, which was regarded as an overall energy of the propagating incident wave, was smaller in the S specimen than in the L specimen because a larger number of interior pores contributed to dissipating the applied energy, thereby resulting in the better buffering performance in the S specimen. The maximum impacting value applied to the impact-absorbing buffer materials, i.e., maximum impact acceleration, was another reliable evaluating parameter, and its data corresponded well with the impact momentum data. Thus, the present study presents reliable methods to conduct the laboratory-scale SHPB tests under simulated conditions of actual impact, to evaluate the impact-energy-absorbing performance, and to analyze the dynamic compressive behavior correlated with the buffering safety.</p> Graphical Abstract <p></p>