Alternative starting materials for the production of aluminum foam by the powder metallurgical process

Abstract

In the past it could be proven that aluminium foam is a construction material appropriate for numerous applications. The widespread use of aluminium is still hampered by the high production costs resulting on the one hand from the costly production method, and on the other one from expensive starting materials. The present work focuses on studies on alternative, cheaper starting materials. The results presented in this work support the idea that aluminium chips may be successfully used as base material instead of atomised powders. It could also be proven that good foaming rates can be achieved with calcium carbonate as foaming agent for aluminium

Materials in machine tool structures

“…The idea of using aluminum chips instead of atomized powder avoiding negative influences on the macroscopic foam structure was studied in Ref. [119] (Fig. 28).…”

Controlled fabrication of porous metals from the nanometer to the macroscopic scale

“…By adjusting the pore structure and thus the relative density and modulus of elasticity, the resonant frequencies causing the parasitic sound waves can be up-shifted into frequency regions that will not be excited during operation. [52][53][54][55] On the other hand, metal sponges with open-cell porosity find functional application as sound absorber, because they provide a large and interconnected pore network, where visco-inertial and thermal dissipation mechanisms significantly affect sound wave propagation. 56 Most of the techniques applied nowadays to fabricate such metal sponges are based on using a template structure, which is reproduced.…”