Synthesis and Characterization of Hollow Glass Sphere Containing Aluminum Syntactic Foam by Spark Plasma Sintering and Hot Pressing

Abstract

The effect of sintering process on the microstructure and the mechanical properties of aluminum syntactic foam were investigated in this study. Two different sintering processes of spark plasma sintering and hot pressing were used. Glass hollow spheres with a size of 50–80 μm was used to fabricate the foams having various volume fractions of the spheres in the range of 10–30%. Microstructural analysis revealed that the glass hollow spheres were uniformly distributed in the aluminum matrix, both in the spark plasma sintered and hot pressed ones. As the volume fraction of the spheres increased from 10 to 30%, the density, micro-hardness and compressive strength of the foams were decreased. In comparison to the foams fabricated by hot pressing method, the spark plasma sintered foams had slightly lower density and mechanical strength. In nanoindentation study, it was found that the aluminum matrix in the foam prepared by the spark plasma sintering process had lower strength than foam prepared by the hot pressing process. This is likely because of shorter sintering time used in the spark plasma sintering process than the hot pressing.

Tensile Behavior and Performance of Syntactic Steel Foams Prepared by Infiltration Casting

“…They combine the strength of the metallic matrix with the excellent energy absorption capacity of foam materials [1,2]. Lightweight alloys, such as aluminum [3][4][5][6][7][8][9] and magnesium [10][11][12][13], are commonly used matrix materials in metal matrix syntactic foams (MMSFs), but systems with zinc [14][15][16], titanium [17][18][19], and iron [20][21][22][23] matrices have also been reported. Benefitting from a variety of advantages, including low weight, high specific strength, high specific stiffness, vibration damping, and high energy absorption, MMSFs are widely used in the aerospace, transportation, packing, defense, and construction industries [24].…”