Thermo-plasticity of metal foams

The thermo-mechanical behaviour of a fluid-filled metal foam is influenced by the characteristics of the solid skeleton and the pore-fluid. During the deformation process both constituents exchange momentum and energy. Based on the theory of porous media a fluid-filled foam is modeled as a binary mixture consisting of a metal skeleton and a pore-gas. The porous solid skeleton is assumed to behave thermo-elasto-plastically. The pore-gas is considered as an ideal gas. For both constituents different phase temperatures and thermo-mechanical coupling mechanisms are taken into account. The resulting system of differential equations is solved using the finite element method. An example demonstrates the applicability and validity of this approach.