Aluminum Foam Preparation Process

Foamed metal is a new kind of material. The idea of producing foam metals was first investigated over forty years ago, but it is only in the last decade that a number of processes have been proven successful. In the past few years, the PM method has been developed to fabricate metal foams. It can be used to produce foamed metals with excellent properties and complex geometry.In this paper, aluminum foams with 40%-80% porosity. 2-5mm pore diameter, and 0.4-0.6 restive density, were produced by the P/M method, i.e. by mixing 6061 powders and blowing agents and pressing them to densification, then foaming. The processing parameters, the effect of the mixing, the pressing parameter, the foaming temperature, heating rate and heat preservation time were studied.The results show that the optimal processing of 6061 Aluminum foams which have structural uniformity and controlled porosity is the foaming temperature 620 -690 , heating rate 45 /min-60 /min and heat preservation time is 12-18min. According to pore size TiH2 content is chosen. When pore size is big, TiH2 content is high and heat preservation time is short, vice versa. The face of clad structural Aluminum foams is more smooth and flatter than single Aluminum foams. Relative density of composite pressing powder has no effect on linked interface. However, layer of no foaming agents is beneficial to foaming, avoiding gas transgress.