Abstract. Owing to their mechanical properties, metallic foams possess the outstanding ability to considerably improve a structure's stiffness and energy absorption capacity with low increases in weight. In the research results from the sub project A4 "Foam filled, rolled, closed profiles" of the CRC 675 "Creation of high strength metallic structures and joints by setting up scaled local material properties" introduced here, both the manufacture as well as the reinforcement of magnesium foams, which are produced by means of powder metallurgy, are described. The potential for increasing their strengths using reinforcements are demonstrated and the results of mechanical tests are presented. In addition to this, research results are presented which have contributed to achieving the main objectives of developing a combined technology for producing profiles which are locally reinforced using magnesium foam. The developed technology is characterised by integrating the foaming process into the roll forming process.

In the project introduced here, the manufacture of light‐metal foams based on magnesium are investigated and enhanced. Such foams possess an excellent mass‐volume ratio and are therefore perfectly suited as light and effective reinforcing elements. Apart from other functional properties, their suitability as energy absorbing crash elements is to be particularly emphasised and is the focus of the investigations here. In the case of impact loading, the energy is largely transformed into the work of plastic deformation during a reduction in volume. Although metallic foams themselves possess only low absolute strengths, it is expedient to employ them in the form of material combinations like sandwich structures or composites by integrating additional internal reinforcing elements. The latter approach is pursued in the present project. Both the initial results of the feasibility study and also the metallographic and mechanical investigations for characterising reinforced magnesium foams are presented.

The investigation of the basic principles for the production of foamed out sections using magnesium foam for support structures by including the foaming process into the cold forming of sections to produce indiviually locally strengthened components is the subject of this research project. To absorb tensile stress, the metal foam will be strengthened with three-dimensional branched struts of high-tensile materials. The quantification of the influence of locally introduced foaming elements on e.g. stiffness alterations and the influence of the resonance frequency of the total structure will be effected by destructive but particularly also by nondestructive tests.