Manufacturing and compressive properties of tube-filled metal syntactic foams

• Published in: Journal of alloys and compounds Vol. 822; p. 153465
• Main Authors: Movahedi, Nima, Murch, Graeme E., Belova, Irina V., Fiedler, Thomas
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Lausanne Elsevier B.V 05.05.2020; Elsevier BV
• Subjects: Aluminum; Chemical reactions; Compression tests; Compressive properties; Deformation; Deformation mechanism; Density; Foamed metals; Mechanical properties; Metal syntactic foam; Microstructural analysis; Syntactic foams; Tube filled foam; Tubes; Metal syntactic foam; Mechanical properties; Tube filled foam; Deformation mechanism
• ISSN: 0925-8388; 1873-4669
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jallcom.2019.153465

In this research, aluminum tubes were integrated into metal syntactic foam (MSF) to manufacture novel tube-filled foam (TFF) structures. Counter-gravity infiltration casting was used to manufacture TFFs using an innovative single-step process. The density of the resulting TFFs was between 1.79 and 1.91 g cm−3 and thus similar to the density of the surrounding MSF. Microstructural analysis of the interface between tube and MSF indicates no significant chemical reaction. For comparison, MSF reference samples without tubes were produced. Quasi-static compression tests were conducted to determine the mechanical properties of the samples produced. The results indicate that embedded aluminum tubes and surrounding MSF mutually stabilize their deformation. TFF samples compressed with uniform barreling from the center of the sample whereas the deformation of MSFs was localized towards one end of the sample. As a result, TFFs showed superior mechanical performance compared to MSFs. •Novel tube-filled metal foams (TFF) were successfully manufactured.•The integration of a metal tube did not increase the density.•Good bonding between metal tube and metal foam was observed.•The integration of a metal tube improved the mechanical properties of the structure.