Production of Metallic Foams Having Open Porosity Using a Powder Metallurgy Approach

Abstract

A technique has been recently developed to produce foamed metallic structures from dry powder blends containing a metallic powder, a polymeric binder, and a foaming agent. The blend is molded and heat-treated to foam and consolidate the material. The final properties may be tailored by varying the sintering temperature. Microstructure, chemical composition, and properties of nickel (Ni) foams sintered at different temperature are presented and discussed. The resulting material has an open cell microstructure with three levels of porosity. This structure leads to materials having low density (∼ 90% porosity) and high specific surface area. The specific surface area is reduced and the mechanical strength is increased when the sintering temperature increases.

Keywords:

• Metallic foam
• Porous metal
• Ni
• Porous Ni
• Nickel foams
• Powder metallurgy
• Porosity
• Surface area
• Mechanical properties
• Sintering

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to acknowledge Magali Le Roux and Manon Plourde from IMI for their help in the experiments and Paul Hynek from Inco SPP and Mark Ward from the University of Toronto for the surface area and chemical analysis. The authors would also like to thanks Teodor Veres and Sylvain Pelletier for their helpful comments.