Fabrication of Micro Porous Aluminum by Powder Sintering

Highly porous materials with a cellular structure are known to have many interesting combinations of physical and mechanical properties, such as very low specific weight combined with high thermal conductivity. However, when the pore size of the foam metal grows, the strength maintenance is scarce because the array of the pore is not uniform. In the present work, micro porous aluminum with porosities between 5% and 50% and pore sizes of 20～50 μm was produced by applying the powder metallurgical technique, i.e. by sintering the aluminum metal powders and PMMA powder mixture at 913 K. The effect of sintering temperature on the compressive properties of porous aluminum was investigated. The effects of particle size and fraction of space holding particle and metal powder on the porosity pore size and mechanical properties of porous sintered specimens were mainly investigated. The pore size of porous aluminum can be controlled by changing the PMMA powder diameter. The results show the fabrication of the micro porous aluminum with middle porosity and high strength is possible.