Papers by Keyword: Aluminum Foams

Abstract: Metals foams are attracting great interest in aerospace, automotive and military fields. Particularly, the closed-cells aluminum foams are characterized by peculiar properties, such as low specific weight coupled with high energy absorption capacity, high specific stiffness and strength and reduced thermal and electrical conductivity. For the above reasons, aluminum foams can be effectively used as core of sandwich structures, replacing the traditional honeycomb and polymer-based foams. However, under specific loading conditions, the foam core was proved to collapse because of the bubble-cell structure, so affecting the mechanical performance of the sandwich constructions. Different solutions have been studying in literature to reinforce the foam-based core; for example, the authors in previous studies investigated the possibility to use a metal grid inside the core as a corrugated skeleton, to improve its behavior under compression. Therefore, based on these premises, the aim of this work is to improve understanding of the mechanical behavior of innovative reinforced aluminum foam panels through an experimental approach consisting of three-point bending tests. In particular sandwich structures with and without a corrugated grid structure, acting as skeleton inside the core, were manufactured. The bending properties were estimated also considering two different types of steel grid employed for the corrugated structure and for reinforcing the skins.

Abstract: Thanks to an intriguing combination of properties, aluminum foams are becoming materials useful for applications in several industrial fields and can be of great interest as core of reinforced structures. Starting from previous studies of the authors, this research work investigates the feasibility of using the induction heating, a fast, clean, and localized source of energy, to produce structures on aluminum foam, also reinforced; in the last case, by means of an innovative single-step process based on the powder compact melting technique, which considers a steel wire mesh-grid as reinforcement and as a mold. In particular, the aim of the work is a screen of the potential of the induction heating to manufacture plain and reinforced aluminum foam structures.

Abstract: Aluminum foams/aluminum plate was transient liquid phase diffusion bonded with Cu/Al/Cu composite interlayer, then the investigation on joint microstructure, element diffusion and joint strength was conducted at 565°C. The results showed that, there was a significant grain boundary penetration phenomenon near the interface and it was more seriously at the side of aluminum foams. The XRD results showed indicated that the main phases near the interface were α-Al, CuAl₂, AlCu, Al₄Cu₉, Al₂O₃. By EDS line scanning, it indicated that the diffusion behavior of elements was different at three regions, compared with the edge region, the interface of the central region was better and the depth of element diffusion is larger, at the pore region, the liquefaction of interlayer was not successfully and the morphology was lamellar. Mechanical properties test showed that the largest shear strength of joint was 4.61 MPa when the duration was 40 min. Key words: Aluminum foams; transient liquid phase bonding; microstructure; element diffusion; shear strength