Bending Properties of Al-Steel and Steel-Steel Composite Metal Foams

Abstract

The performance of new composite metal foams (CMFs) under bending was evaluated with simultaneous acoustic emission (AE) monitoring on samples processed by cast and powder metallurgy (PM) techniques. The results showed high maximum strength in all samples up to 86 MPa with more ductile failure in PM samples. Acoustic emission behavior confirmed that the dominating failure mechanism of cast CMF is the brittle fracture of intermetallic phases that mostly exist at the interface of the steel spheres with the aluminum matrix, whereas in PM samples (100 pct steel), the failure is governed by the propagation of preexisting microporosities in the matrix resulting in a complete ductile failure. SEM imaging of the fracture surfaces supported these findings.

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