Compressive behaviour of open-cell Al–Si alloy foam produced by infiltration casting

Abstract

Open-cell Al–Si alloy foams with different densities were manufactured by vacuum infiltration. The foam with smaller NaCl as space holders showed a mixed scaffold structure consisting of abundant struts and cell walls. It was also found that the open-cell Al–Si alloy foam showed various defects containing micropores, microcracks and missing cell walls. The compression results indicated that the open-cell Al–Si alloy foams exhibited smoother stress–strain behaviour and higher compressive strength than that of previous studies, despite a larger number of defects in brittle Al–Si matrix. The successive occurrences of multiple deformation bands owing to the mixed structure and various defects were responsible for the smooth compression stress–strain behaviour.

KEYWORDS:

• Porous materials
• space holder
• compressive properties
• deformation mechanisms

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The datasets generated and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Authors contributions

Yinzheng Xia: Methodology, Validation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Data curation, Writing - original draft. Jianchao Shi: Investigation, Data curation, Analysed results. Yongliang Mu: Conceptualisation, Methodology, Investigation, Writing - review & editing, Supervision, Project administration, Funding acquisition.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities: [Grant Number N2225010].