Compressive Strength and Damping Characteristics Open Cell Eutectic Al-Si Alloy Foam Produced by Core Casting Process

Metal foams are a new class of materials with low densities, good vibration, acoustic properties, energy absorption and high specific stiffness. These also exhibit many unusual combinations of physical and mechanical properties that make them attractive in a number of engineering applications. Metallic foams can be manufactured by many methods like powder metallurgy route, melt route, gas injection into molten metal, liquid metal infiltration. The properties of metal foam depend on many morphological features, such as pore size distribution, cell wall curvature, defects etc. The aim of the present work is to study the compressive behaviour and damping properties of eutectic Al-Si alloy. Open cell foam specimens were produced by melt route i.e., core casting method. The compressive test was conducted and compressive strength id found to be 21.98MPa. Damping properties of open cell foam were measured by experimental modal analysis using impulse excitation technique at room temperature. The measured loss factor shows that aluminium foams have a higher damping capacity compared to bulk aluminium and damping increases with increasing porosity levels.