Cellular structure control of aluminium foams during foaming process of aluminium melt

Journal Article · Tue Nov 03 04:00:00 EST 1998 · Scripta Materialia

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/S1359-6462(98)00361-3· OSTI ID:289471

Ma, L; Song, Z ^[1]

---

1. Southeast Univ., Nanjing (China). Dept. of Materials Science and Engineering

Metallic foams, a kind of cellular solid which does not exist naturally like wood, coral and sponge, can be used as new functional materials because of the unique combination of properties which can be derived from their cellular structure. Many methods, including casting, powder metallurgy and metallic deposition, are available to produce this material. Especially two casting methods, low pressure infiltration (LPI) and foaming technique, are relatively useful for commercial production of this special material for their low cost. In the authors recent report, the difficulty of open-celled cellular structure control during aluminium foams (AF) preparation by LPI process has been described, and a high pressure infiltration process has also been put forward by the authors to solve this problem. In fact, cellular structure control is also a problem to be solved for FT process to prepare AF because of the non-uniformly distribution of the bubbles during the foaming process of aluminium melt. This problem is directly related to the viscosity control of the melt. Two low viscosity leads to rapid floating of the bubbles while too high viscosity results in suppression of formation of bubbles. It is very important to control the viscosity of the melt during the foaming process. In this study, the authors simply do the real-time measurement of viscosity of the melt by measuring the voltage of paddle motor during the stirring of the melt. The effect of viscosity on the final cellular structure of AF is investigated using the data of viscosity measured by this method.

• OSTI ID: 289471
• Journal Information: Scripta Materialia, Journal Name: Scripta Materialia Journal Issue: 11 Vol. 39; ISSN 1359-6462; ISSN SCMAF7
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
ALUMINIUM
CASTING
EXPERIMENTAL DATA
FOAMS
LIQUID METALS
PORE STRUCTURE
VISCOSITY