Mechanical behavior of open-cell aluminium foams filled with tin-bronze foams

Abstract The interior pore of open-cell aluminium foams filled with bronze foams is a new method of preparing aluminium foams composite. The voids of bronze foams were fabricated by in situ thermal decomposition of space-holder in a powder metallurgical sintering process. Cu 3 Sn phase content is observed to increase through phase transformation at the expense of Cu 6 Sn 5 and aluminium-matrix during isothermal aging. The effect of bronze foams porosity on the interface microstructure between aluminium-matrix and the filler has been investigated. The ‘bulge’ shape appears in the compressive stress-strain curve of aluminium foams composite, which is sharply different from single-component metal foams. According to the characteristic of the stress distribution, the stress-strain curves can be divided into 4 stages: quasi-linear region, stress decrease region, plateau stress region and densification region. The effect of bronze foams filler relative density on the first maximum stress and absorbed energy density of aluminium foams composite was also studied. The results suggest incorporating bronze foams in the aluminium foams pores is an effective method to improve the mechanical properties of open-cell aluminium foams.