Metal Foam Manufacturing, Mechanical Properties and Its Designing Aspects—A Review

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Abstract

The implementation of metal foams (especially aluminium alloy foams) has made an impact in the automobile and aerospace industries where crash energy absorption, vibration and sound damping and weight reduction is necessary. This paper includes a study in the field of metal foams encompassing different aspects such as its purpose, manufacturing methods, primary study about the mechanical and analytical behaviour of these upcoming materials and simulation-based model development for further experimentation. The mechanics focus on different models which are suggested by different researchers and the empirical formulas suggested by them to calculate various mechanical properties of the aluminium metal foam. Using LS-DYNA, the behaviour of foam has also been observed. Observations showed that, as opposed to normal metal grid structures, it was observed that the metal foam reinforced structure showed major improvement in mechanical properties such as yield stress and crushability and is thereby a great alternative to the hollow tubes without compromising on the weight.