Composite materials and micro-and macrostructure designs have been the focus of numerous scientific studies over the past few years according to their crashworthiness. [1][2][3] Crashworthiness is concerned with the absorption of energy through controlled failure mechanisms and modes that enable a defined load profile during energy absorption. [4] The specific energy absorption per unit mass, the specific energy absorption per unit volume as well as the interlaminar fracture toughness as a ratio of the fracture toughness parameter to the Young's modulus are expressions in terms of the crashworthiness.Cellular materials, such as metal foams, are materials which display a unique combination of physical and mechanical properties, e.g., for crash box applications. The defining characteristic of metal foams is a very high porosity, typically in the range of 70-90 vol%. In principle, cellular metals can be manufactured from gas, liquid, or solid phases and currently the most advanced methods involve meltmetallurgical processes. [5] Several groups have produced foam structures by using hollow spheres to form the cells of the material. [6,7] These materials exhibited plateau stresses of 5 and 23 MPa, respectively, with volume specific energy absorptions SEA of 2 and 10 MJ m À3 respectively, up to 50% strain. [6,7] Rabiei et al. [8] have presented new crash absorbing foams based on stainless steel hollow spheres packed into a dense arrangement, with the interstitial spaces between the spheres filled with stainless steel powder and final sintering. The compressive strength of this closed-cell stainless steel material was given as 136 MPa at about 40% strain with an energy absorbed of 68 MJ m À3 up to 50% strain. [8] By combining ceramics with ductile metals, failuretolerant metal matrix composites (MMCs) can be created. With regard to application of the MMCs as wear resistant materials in metal forming tools a prolongation of the life time and the resultant reduced equipment downtimes have been achieved by active steel infiltrating of porous zirconia structures with the aid of Ti as activator. [9] A very promising approach concerning zirconia/steel-composite materials with superior mechanical properties has been demonstrated by Guo et al. using a low-alloyed TRIP-steel in combination with an Y-PSZ-ceramic. [10,11] Martensitic transformation in TRIP-steels (TRansformation Induced Plasticity) can improve not only materials strength, but also ductility to a greater degree by the deformation-induced transformation of the metastable austenite to martensite. With the incorporation of up to 20 vol% Y-PSZ in the TRIP-steel matrix Guo et al.
COMMUNICATION[*] Prof.Porous materials have received extensive attention for energy absorption in the last years. In terms of this study austenitic TRIP-steel/Mg-PSZ composite-open cell foam structures are formed based on replicas using open-celled polyurethane foam as a skeleton with and without a supporting dense face (jacket) coating. Their compression strength as well as their specific ener...