Aluminium Foam

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• Aluminium Foam
• Sandwich Structures
• Milli Styles

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Aluminium Foam what and how?

• Closed cell or open cell
• Manufacturing methods
• Sintering metal powders
• Infiltration
• Powder processing
• Melt route processing
• Direct gas injection
• Foaming agent

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Aluminium Foam several interesting properties

• Good stiffness to strength to weight ratios
• High impact energy absorption
• Electromagnetic wave absorption
• Good sound damping
• Thermal insulation
• Non combustibility

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Aluminium Foam as a sandwich core?

• Combined with facings gives increased stiffness
  to weight ratio
• Alternative to polymer foam core
• High temperature performance allows
• Higher processing temperatures
• Thermoplastic composite skins
• Is the behaviour of an Aluminium foam sandwich
  structure comparable to that of a polymer foam
  structure?

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Aluminium Sandwich materials

• Aluminium foam core (Alporas, Gleich GmbH)
• Thermoplastic composite skin (Twintex,
  Saint-Gobain Vetrotex)
• Made using adhesive at bi-material interface,
  with heated platen press

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Polymer Sandwich materials

• Polymer foam core (Divinycell H100, Diab Group)
• Thermoset composite skin (plain weave E-glass, UV
  curing polyester resin)
• Wet layup with photoinitiator (Irgacure 819), 10
  minutes UV exposure for curing

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Core cell structures

• Alporas closed cell Aluminium foam
• Divinycell H100 polymer foam

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4pt Bend Testing

• Both structures used the same dimensions
• Cross head speed of 10mm/min

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Strain Analysis ARAMIS

• Samples given speckled pattern which deforms
• Stereo images captured of deformation
• Photogrammetric principles to track small
  correlation areas in successive images
• Þ Full-field contour of strain distribution

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Strain Analysis

• Image recorded by one ARAMIS camera

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Results Load Displacement
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Results Deformation
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Results Alporas Strain
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Results Divinycell Strain
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Results Comparison

• Strain at peak load

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Results Comparison

• Strain at arrest of load drop

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Impact testing

• Aluminium foam has promising energy absorption
  properties
• Double pendulum impact tester

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Damaged samples

• Impact damage at (a) 5 and (b) 25J

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FaroArm laser scans

• Displacement of back face of Aluminium and
  polymer foam samples

25J
5J
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Post impact behaviourSingle cantilever beam
loading

• Polymer samples with 100N load
• a) undamaged
• b) 10J
• c) 15J
• d) 25J

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Post impact behaviourSingle cantilever beam
loading

• Alporas samples with 100N load
• a) undamaged
• b) 10J
• c) 15J
• d) 25J

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Conclusions

• Significantly different deformation behaviour
• Aluminium foam progressive deformation
• Contrasting strain distribution patterns
• Comparable mechanical properties
• Aluminium foam good energy absorption and post
  impact behaviour
• Aluminium foam/composite skin sandwich structures
  could be a suitable alternative for a variety of
  structural situations

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Aluminium Foam Sculpture

• Cosmos by Maurice Lemieux, 1968-1971

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Aluminium Foam Interior Design?

• Stabilised aluminium foam, design applications by
  Alusion
• http//www.alusion.com/product.html