Aluminum Foam Sandwich with Different Face-Sheet Materials under Three-Point Bending

Aluminum foam sandwich structure is a new type of composite material with excellent mechanical and functional properties. As it is known that properties of aluminum foam sandwiches (AFS) vary if the foam core is sandwiched between different face sheets. To study the effects of face-sheet materials on the mechanical properties of AFS and enable a better understanding of the usage of such AFS structures under flexural load, AFS sandwiched by 6061-aluminum alloy face-sheets and 304 stainless steel face-sheets were fabricated and investigated under three-point bending by using WDW-T100 electronic universal tensile testing machine. Results showed that 6061-aluminum alloy reinforced AFS had the same peak load value with 304-stainless steel reinforced one almost so long as the thicknesses of the face-sheet material were the same and the foam core densities were the same too, but the energy absorption ability of 304-stainless steel reinforced AFS was much higher than that of 6061-aluminum alloy reinforced. However, the integrality of the 6061-sandwiched AFS was better than 304-sandwiched AFS. Deformation modes of the two types of AFS were also discussed in the present study.