In-situ Quasistatic Compression and Microstructural Characterization of Aluminum Foams of Different Cell Topology

摘要

—Metallic foams have good potential for lightweightstructures for impact and blast mitigation. Therefore it is important tofind out the optimized foam structure (i.e. cell size, shape, relativedensity, and distribution) to maximise energy absorption. In thispaper, quasistatic compression and microstructural characterizationof closed-cell aluminium foams of different pore size and celldistributions have been carried out. We present results for twodifferent aluminium metal foams of density 0.49-0.51 g/cc and 0.310.34g/cc respectively that have been tested in quasi-staticcompression. The influence of cell geometry and cell topology onquasistatic compression behaviour has been investigated using opticalmicroscope and computed tomography (micro-CT) analysis. It isshown that the deformation is not uniform in the structure andcollapse begins at the weakest point.