Mechanical Response of Open‐Cell Metal Foams with Single‐ and Multilayer Shell during Uniaxial Compression Test

Abstract

Metal foams are one of the unique materials that need more attention in terms of mechanical and microstructural characterizations. Herein, different kinds of metal foams such as Ni, Cu, and a novel type of multilayered metal foam with Ni–Cu and Cu–Ni coating layer orders are produced and characterized in terms of mechanical response and microstructure of these novel materials during a uniaxial compression test. These multilayered metallic foams have a strong mechanical adhesion at the interface due to the nature of electroforming process and the effect of solid‐solution area at these interfaces. Besides, multilayered metal foams are superior to Ni and Cu pure metal foams in terms of mechanical response; applying a multilayered metallic coat with 60 and 69 μm diameter for Ni and Cu improves the yield point of the Ni and Cu single‐layer metallic foams by 3 and 7 times, respectively. Moreover, in terms of energy absorption density, the multilayered metallic shell improves the energy absorption density by 3 and 5.5 times compared to Ni and Cu metal foams, respectively. This study shows that applying multi layered coatings to metal foams with Ni as the first layer has superior characteristics compared to single‐layer metal foams.