Aluminium Foam Fabrication by Powder Metallurgy Route

摘要

Aluminium foams play a key role in providing a cushion for absorption of shock and impact. They have also, found increasing applications in a wide range of structural and functional products, due to their exceptional mechanical, thermal, acoustic, electrical and chemical properties and offer great potential for lightweight structures. Aluminium foam structures have densities only fractions of that of a solid structure and have high specific strength and stiffness. They have excellent properties for absorption of impact energy, vibration and sound. In this paper, a process for development of aluminium foam by powder metallurgy route has been discussed. The metal foaming process is based on a procedure where uniform mixing of aluminium powder and foaming agent is done and compacted in a cold isostatic press. The compacted billet is extruded. The extruded billet is heated up to foaming temperature. The heating process leads to partial metal melting with the release of the foaming gas. Aluminium foam having a density of around 0.3 g/crh3have been fabricated. The effects of various fabrication parameters like compaction pressure, extrusion ratio, foaming temperature are discussed. The above-mentioned. Aluminium foams are characterized in terms of density, microstructure, porosity content. It is necessary to obtain various mechanical properties like yield strength, tensile strength and impact energy for metal foam to understand the behaviour of foam under different conditions.