Compressive behaviour of open cell Al–Al2O3 composite foams fabricated by sintering and dissolution process

Abstract

The sintering and dissolution process (SDP) was used to produce the fine open cell Al–Al2O3 composite and pure Al foams with the relative density of 0·25–0·40 and the pore size of 112–400 μm. The composite foam exhibited much higher yield strength and Young's modulus than the pure Al foam, and thus had an elevated plateau stress. Moreover, the composite foam showed a unique dependence of the compression stress on the pore size, i.e. it increased with increasing pore size, which was quite different from that for the common metal foams.