Effect of various parameters on properties of composite steel foams under variety of loading rates

Steel-steel composite metal foams (CMF) are manufactured using steel hollow spheres (with variety of different sphere sizes, surface roughness and carbon content) embedded in a stainless steel matrix through powder metallurgy technique and are investigated experimentally under compression loading with variety of loading rates. The microstructural and mechanical properties of the material were studied using optical and scanning electron microscopy, energy dispersive spectroscopy, quasi-static, and dynamic compressive loading up to 26 m/s. It is observed that the yield and plateau strength as well as the energy absorption capabilities of the composite foams are increased with increasing loading rate and by decreasing sphere sizes. Such mechanical properties improved by additional carbon content in the sphere wall at strains below 17% while the effect of density, resulted from porosity content, showed an improvement on the densification strain and plateau strengths at higher than 17% strain. The effect of spheres surface roughness and carbon content on mechanical properties of CMF seemed to be minimal compared to other parameters. As a result, the features controlling the life time and performance of composite metal foams under static and dynamic loading have been categorized into two main groups. The first group that controls the yield and plateau strength of the foam at lower strain levels includes bonding strength between the spheres and matrix which is a function of the sphere surface roughness and the gradient chemical composition between the spheres and matrix. The second group that controls the relative density, densification strain and plateau strength at higher strain levels belongs to the sphere diameter and the porosity content in both spheres and matrix. Moreover, increasing the loading rate improves the yield strength of all CMF samples.