STRUCTURAL SUPERLIGHT POROUS METALS (Review)

摘要

Porous metals, having many attractive technological properties, have aroused greater interest over the-recent years. The paper gives the main technological advantages of porous metals opening up good prospects for their application. Porous metals, while preserving the main advantages of the initial material, have many times lower heat and electric conductivity, while their sound absorption and damping capability are higher. Adhesion bonding, brazing or diffusion welding can be used as methods of joining porous metals. Porous aluminium is capable of providing an unprecedented strength-to-weight ratio that can be actively applied in aerospace technologies, where mass minimizing is highly important. Porous aluminium properties, the most widely applied at present, are damping and maximum absorption of vibrations, waves and impact energy at collisions. In the near future porous alloys, depending on the degree of porosity and manifestation of new unique properties, will become the main structural and protective materials in development of military ammunition, in construction, instrument-making, as well as automotive, railway, aerospace engineering and in ship-building. Porous metals have been intensively manufactured since 2000 in Europe, USA and Japan. In Ukraine porous aluminium manufacturing has been mastered at the experimental level, and still is expensive and energy-consuming.