The application of model equation method in preparation of titanium foams

Abstract

Abstract The model equation method (MEM) is a new method to measure the porosity of porous materials. This paper demonstrates the application value of the MEM in the preparation of titanium foams from an experimental point of view. The results showed that the porosities calculated by the MEM were in the range of 0.533–0.701 with the spacer contents between 0.55 and -0.75. The measured values were highly consistent with those of the mass volume method, which indicates that the MEM was feasible to measure porosity. The correlation equation between porosity and spacer content has a very high prediction accuracy by a linear fitting. The elastic modulus and yield strength of titanium foams were 4.8–29 GPa and 10.2–101.1 MPa, respectively. The relative elastic modulus and relative yield strength were directly proportional to the n-th power of relative density through a nonlinear fitting. The mathematical correlations between relative mechanical properties and spacer content were established. This study not only proves that the new method of porosity measurement has an important application value, but also realizes the source control of mechanical properties of titanium foams.