Effects of microporosity on the elasticity and yielding of thin-walled metallic hollow spheres

Knowledge of the mechanical properties of porous metallic hollow spheres (MHS) thin wall is of key importance for understanding the engineering performance of both individual ultralight MHS and the innovative MHS-based bulk foams. This paper presents the first integrated experimental and numerical study to determine the elasticity and yielding of the porous MHS wall and their dependence on its microporosity. Nanoindentation was used to probe the Young's modulus and hardness of the nonporous MHS wall material, and synchrotron X-ray computed tomography (XCT) conducted to obtain its porous microstructure and pore morphology. Three-dimensional finite element modeling was performed to obtain the mechanical response of microcubes with varying porosity trimmed from the XCT-derived real digital model of the porous MHS wall. Results show that both the Young's modulus and yield strength of the porous wall decrease nonlinearly with increasing porosity, and their relationships follow the same format of a power law function and agree well with prior experimental results. The empirical relations also reflect certain features of pore morphology, such as pore connectivity and shape. These findings can shed lights on the design, manufacturing, and modeling of individual MHS and MHS-based foams.