Influence of strain amplitude on damping property of aluminum foams reinforced with copper-coated carbon fibers

Aluminum foams containing 0.35, 1.0, 1.7 vol.% copper-coated carbon fibers were fabricated by a melt route. The room temperature damping property of Al/Cf foam was studied at different strain amplitude in two directions. The experimental results show that the critical strain amplitude decreases and the damping capacity of Al/Cf foam increases with the copper-coated carbon fibers contents. It can be attributed to the interfacial micro-slip increasing with the Cf contents and the microplasticity deformation arises from the micro-crack among the Cf–Al interface. Moreover, the damping property in the transverse direction is higher than that in the longitudinal direction. The ratio of longitudinal loss factor to transverse loss factor is almost independent of the Cf contents and strain amplitude.