Properties of Aluminium Cellular Materials Produced by Powder Metallurgy Using the Foaming Agent TiH2

A considerable attention is paid to the production and monitoring of the properties of metallic cellular structures and the properties of aluminium foams, respectivly. Foam structures can be manufactured in three basic ways (by blowing the external gas into the melt, by melt gasification due to the thermal decomposition of the foaming agent, by the melting of the foamable preform which contains foaming agent particles). The paper addresses to our publication [18] and furthermore focuses on the investigation of mechanical properties of two types of foamed AlSi12 aluminium alloy samples. Samples (150x25x10 mm) were produced by powder metallurgy using a foaming agent TiH2. The characteristics features of the produced foam structures (relative density, porosity, volume fraction of solids, Young's modulus of elasticity) were studied on AlSi12 alloy samples. In addition, the porosity of samples and continuity of their air cells were monitored usign the scanning electron microscope.