The Fracture Properties of Sandwich Structures Based on a Metal Foam Core

Abstract

The fracture properties of a series of metal foam sandwich structures based on glass fiber-reinforced polyamide 6,6 composite (GF/PA6,6) skins have been investigated. The open cell core materials were manufactured using the Lost Carbonate Sintering (LCS) process, a recently-developed technique for manufacturing metal foams. Initially, the effect of varying the compaction pressure used in producing the metal foams as well as the density of the samples were investigated through a series of compression tests. Here, it was shown that the compressive strength and the elastic modulus of the foams varied with density and compaction pressure, in spite of the fact that the average size of the cells in these foams were insensitive to either of these two parameters. The resistance of sandwich structures to localized loading was investigated through a series of indentation tests. Here, it was shown that the indentation response of sandwich structures could be characterized using a simple indentation law, the parameters of which did not exhibit any clear dependency on the density of the foam. Finally, three point bend tests on the sandwich structures have shown that their loading-bearing properties were sensitive to foam density.