High strength tailor-made metallic foams (TMFs): Development and characterization

• A novel technique is introduced for tailoring the structure of metal foam in accordance to any application and required mechanical properties.
• While it has less density than syntactic foams, enhanced specific energy absorption of 40 kJ/kg was obtained.
• Although the relative density of produced foam would not exceed 0.74, a high compressive strength of 143 MPa was achieved.
• A wide range of mechanical properties can be reached by using different cell size and architecture in the metal matrix.

Advanced tailor-made metallic foams (TMFs) were successfully manufactured by a novel and unique precision manufacturing technique. Different cellular architectures including ordered, disordered and graded dispersion of polymeric spheres in aluminum matrix were prepared and studied under quasi static loading. The results showed high compressive strength of 40–143 MPa for the as-produced foams while exhibiting low density (1.6–2 g/cm3). Introducing a gradient architecture within the cells led to higher elastic modulus compared to simple cubic architecture. Also, outstanding specific energy absorption range of 4.6–40 kJ/kg was found to be dependent to the relative density, cell size and architecture of the cells. It was also observed that the main factor governing the properties of the TMFs with the same density was the ratio of the cell wall thickness to the cell diameter (t/D).