Measuring elasto-plastic properties of solid wall materials of metallic foams at elevated temperatures by using indentation hardness technique

Abstract

To evaluate or design metallic foams at the meso-level for applications at high temperatures, an indentation method is extended to measure the Young’s moduli, the yield strengths and the strain hardening exponents of the cell wall materials. The method was verified against a type of aluminum foam and the elasto-plastic properties of the aluminum cell walls were measured at various temperatures up to 400 °C. An approximate linear temperature dependence is observed for the hardness, the Young’s modulus and the yield strength. The present study provides a feasible way to investigate the meso-mechanical behavior of foam materials at high temperatures.

Keywords:

• Metallic foam
• solid wall
• elasto-plastic
• elevated temperature
• indentation