A Study on the Quasi-static Compression Behavior of 5056 Aluminum Alloy Foams

Subject Areas : Manufacturing & Production

Sadegh Soltani ¹ , Hamed Deilami Azodi ² , Seyed Hossein Elahi ³

1 - M.Sc., Department of Mechanical Engineering, Arak University of Technology, Arak, Iran.
2 - Associate Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Arak University of Technology, Arak, Iran
3 - Assistant Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Arak University of Technology, Arak, Iran

Received: 2023-08-29 Accepted : 2023-10-24 Published : 2022-11-01

Keywords: Compressive Strength, energy absorption, elastic modulus, Aluminum foam, Foaming agent,

Abstract :

In this paper, 5056 aluminum alloy foams with different percentages of calcium carbonate as foaming agents have been produced, and the physical and mechanical properties of the foams have been studied. Quasi-static compression tests have been carried out to determine the mechanical properties of foamed material. The effects of the amount of calcium carbonate on the size of the pores, the minimum thickness of the walls, density, compressive strength and energy absorption capacity of foams have been investigated. The uniform structure of the pores has been observed in foam specimens with 1.5, 1.8 and 2.1 wt% CaCO3. Increasing the amount of CaCO3 foaming agent from 1.5% to 2.1% has increased the average size of the pores by more than 180% and reduced the thickness of cell walls by 90%. So, the density and the relative density of the aluminum foams have been reduced by 28.6%. The results also show that increasing the amount of CaCO3 foaming agent decreases compressive strength, the absorbed energy and the elastic modulus of 5056 aluminum foams. By increasing the amount of foaming agent from 1.5% to 2.1%, the elastic modulus has reduced by about 16%, and a decrease of 21% has been seen in the energy absorbed by the foam at the strain of 0.4.

References:

• 
  

  [1] L.J. Gibson, M.F. Ashby, Cellular Solids: Structure and Properties, 2nd ed., Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1997.

  
  

  [2] R.E. Raj, B.S.S. Daniel, “Structural and compressive property correlation of closed-cell aluminum foam”, J. Alloys Compd., Vol. 467, No. 1-2, 2009, pp. 550-556.

  
  

  [3] J. Banhart, H.W. Seeliger, “Aluminium Foam Sandwich Panels: Manufacture, Metallurgy and Applications”, Adv. Eng. Mater., Vol. 10 No. 9, 2008, pp. 793-802.

  
  

  [4] S.K. Nammi, P. Myler, G. Edwards, “Finite element analysis of closed-cell aluminum foam under quasi-static loading”, Materials & Design, Vol. 31, No. 2, 2010, pp. 712-722.

  
  

  [5] E. Andrews, W. Sanders, L.J. Gibson, “Compressive and tensile behavior of aluminum foams”, Mater. Sci. Eng. A, Vol. 270, No. 2, 1999, pp. 113-124.

  
  

  [6] N. Babcsan, Ceramic Particles Stabilized Aluminum Foams, Ph.D. Thesis, University of Miskolc, Miskolc, Hungary, 2003.

  
  

  [7] J. Banhart, “Manufacture, characterization and application of cellular metals and metallic foams”, Prog. Mater. Sci., Vol. 46, No. 6, 2001, pp. 559-632. [8] M.F. Ashby, T. Evans, N.A. Fleck, J.W. Hutchinson, H.N.G. Wadley, L.J. Gibson, Metal Foams-A Design Guide, 1st ed., Butterworth-Heinemann, London, 2000.

  
  

  [9] M.R. Farahani, S.H. Elahi, H.R. Rezaei Ashtiani, "Effect of silicon content on mechanical properties and progressive collapse behavior of closed-cell aluminum foams", Trans. Indian Inst. Met., Vol. 74, 2021, pp. 3145-3154.

  
  

  [10] B. Zhang, J. Zhang, L. Wang, Y. Jiang, W. Wang, G. Wu, “Bending behavior of cenosphere aluminum matrix syntactic foam-filled circular tubes”, Eng. Struct., Vol. 243, 2021, pp. 112650.

  
  

  [11] D. Kecman, "Bending collapse of rectangular and square section tubes." Int. J. Mech. Sci., Vol. 25, No. 9-10, 1983, pp. 623-636.

  
  

  [12] M. Seitzberger, F.G. Rammerstorfer, R. Gradinger, H.P. Degischer, B. Blaimschein, C. Walch, “Experimental studies on the quasi-static axial crushing of steel columns filled with aluminum foam”, Int. J. Solids Struct., Vol. 37, No. 30, 2000, pp. 4125-4147.

  
  

  [13] ‏E. Linul, N. Movahedi, L. Marsavina, “The temperature and anisotropy effect on compressive behavior of cylindrical closed-cell aluminum-alloy foams”, J. Alloys Compd., Vol. 740, 2018, pp. 1172-1179.‏

  
  

  [14] Z. Wang, J. Shen, G. Lu, L. Zhao, “Compressive behavior of closed-cell aluminum alloy foams at medium strain rates”, Mater. Sci. Eng. A, Vol. 528, No. 6, 2011, pp. 2326-2330.

  
  

  [15] N. Heidari Ghaleh, N. Ehsani, H. Baharvandi, "Compressive properties of A356 closed-cell aluminum foamed with a CaCO₃ blowing agent without stabilizer particles", Met. Mater. Int., Vol. 27, No. 10, 2021, pp. 3856-386.

  
  

  [16] T.P. Kumar, S. Venkateswaran, S. Seetharamu, "Effect of grain size of calcium carbonate blowing agent on physical properties of eutectic Al–Si alloy closed cell foam," Trans. Indian Inst. Met., Vol. 68, 2015, pp. 109-112.

  
  

  [17] D.K. Rajak, N.N. Mahajan, S. Das, "Fabrication and investigation of influence of CaCO₃ as blowing agent on Al-SiCp foam", Mater. Manuf. Process, Vol. 34, No. 4, 2019, pp. 379-384.

  
  

  [18] R. Karuppasamy, D. Barik, N. Sivaram, M.S. Dennison, "Investigation on the effect of aluminium foam made of A413 aluminium alloy through stir casting and infiltration techniques", Int. J. Mater. Eng. Innov., Vol. 11, 2020, pp. 34-50.

  
  

  [19] C. Ren, Z. Hu, C. Yao, F Mo, “Experimental study on the quasi-static compression behavior of multilayer aluminum foam sandwich structure”, J. Alloys Compd., Vol. 810, 2019, pp. 151860.

  
  

  [20] S. Sutarno, B. Nugraha, K. Suhirman, "Optimization of calcium carbonate content on synthesis of aluminum foam and its compressive strength characteristic," Proc. 1st International Process Metallurgy Conference API Conference Proceedings, Vol. 1805, No. 1, Indonesia, 2017, p. 060003.

  
  

  [21] E. Linul, L. Marsavina, J. Kovacik, T. Sadowski, "Dynamic and quasi-static compression tests of closed-cell aluminium alloy foams", Proc. Roman. Acad. A, Vol. 18, No. 4, 2017, pp. 361-369.

  
  

  [22] M. Hajizadeh, M. Yazdani, Sh. Vaseli, H. Khodarahmi, T. M. Mostofi, "An experimental investigation into the quasi-static compression behavior of open-cell aluminum foams focusing on controlling the space holder particle size",  J. Manuf. Process., Vol. 70, 2021, pp. 193-204.‏

  
  

  [23] F. Hassanli, M.H. Paydar, "Improvement in energy absorption properties of aluminum foams by designing pore-density distribution", J. Mater. Res. Technol., Vol. 14, 2021, pp. 609-619.‏

  
  

  [24] E. Wang, G. Sun, G. Zheng, Q. Li, "On multiaxial failure behavior of closed-cell aluminum foams under medium strain rates", Thin-Walled Struct., Vol. 160, 2021, pp. 107278.‏

  
  

  [25] K.S. Verma, D. Muchhala, S.K. Panthi, D.P. Mondal, "Influences of cell size, cell wall thickness and cell circularity on the compressive responses of closed-cell aluminum foam and its FEA analysis",  Int. J. Met., Vol. 16, No. 2,  2022, pp. 798-813.‏

  
  

  [26] F. Saleem, Sh. Li, Sh.Cui, X. Liu, T. Xu, L. Mei, Y. Bian, Ch. Miao, T. Luo, " The strain rate and density dependence of the mechanical properties of closed-cell aluminum foam", Mater. Sci. Eng. A, Vol. 884, 2023, pp. 145568.

  
  

  [27] M. Szkodo, A. Stanisławska, A. Komarov, L. Bolewski, “ Effect of MAO coatings on cavitation erosion and tribological properties of 5056 and 7075 aluminum alloys”, Wear, Vol. 474-475, 2021, pp. 203709.

  
  

  [28] T. Ferreira, W. Rasband, ImageJ user guide, ImageJ/Fiji 1 ,2012,

  
  

  [29] H.P. Degischer, B. Kriszt, Handbook of cellular metals, 1st ed., Wiley‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, 2002. 

  
  

  [30] J.K. Khabushan, S.B. Bonabi, F.M. Aghbagh, A.K. Khabushan, “A study of fabricating and compressive properties of cellular Al-Si (355.0) foam using TiH2”, Materials & Design, Vol. 55, 2014, pp. 792-797.

  
  

  [31] W. Zhao, Z. Zhang, Y. Wang, X. Xia, H. Feng, J. Wang, “Compressive characteristics of closed-cell aluminum foams with different percentages of Er element”, China Foundry Vol. 13, No. 1, 2016, pp. 36-41.

  
  

  [32] I. Jeon, T. Asahina, “The effect of structural defects on the compressive behavior of closed-cell Al foam”, Acta Mater. Vol. 53, No. 12, 2005, pp. 3415–3423.

  
  

  [33] O.B. Olurin, N.A. Fleck, M.F. Ashby, “Deformation and fracture of aluminum foams”, Mater. Sci. Eng. A, Vol. 291, No. 1-2, 2000, pp. 136–146.

  
  

  [34] P. Pinto, N. Peixinho, F. Silva, D. Soares, “Compressive properties and energy absorption of aluminum foams with modified cellular geometry”, J. Mater. Process. Technol., Vol. 214, No. 3, 2014, pp. 571–577.

  
  

  [35] S. Soltani, H. Deilami Azodi, S.H. Elahi, “The influence of the amount of CaCO₃ foaming agent on the physical structure and mechanical properties of LM13 aluminum foam”, Iranian Journal of Manufacturing Engineering, Vol. 9, No. 5, 2022, pp. 33- 39.

  
  [36] X. Cao, Z. Wang, H. Ma, L. Zhao, G. Yang, “Effects of cell size on compressive properties of aluminum foam”, Trans. Nonferrous Met. Soc., Vol. 16, No. 2, 2006, pp. 351–356.