The Manufacturing Technology of Aluminum Foam Material and Some Special Equipments

Abstract

It was found that aluminum foam material have sound insulation and absorption, electromagnetic shielding, anti explosion, anti bullet penetration, special high strength sandwich plate.etc. So the aluminum foam material can be used to manufacture carrier deck, light-weight and quick mounting bridge, the littoral Combat Ship Deck, mine resistant floor of military vehicle , bulletproof composite armor, airborne buffer table for heavy equipment, light missile manhole covers, High-speed Rail train anti collision structure, High-speed Rail train sound barrier, safety school bus ,and so on. The performance of these equipment will be significantly improved by making use of foam aluminum material. Introduction Aluminum foam is a new material. Northeastern University has carried out engineering research work on the 863 high technology planning support of the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology. Foam aluminum material specification has reached 800mm x 2000mm. Aluminum foam is a light-weight and multi functional materials, the density of 0.25g/cm 3 ~ 0.6g/cm 3 , the porosity of 78% ~ 90% . In addition, it also has the anti explosion, anti bullet penetration, sandwich plate high strength. Rely on these properties of aluminum foam, some equipment can be significantly improved the performance, such as manufacturing aircraft carrier deck, light quick mounting bridge, the Littoral Combat Ship Deck, mine resistant floor of military vehicle, bulletproof composite armor, airborne buffer table for heavy equipment, light missile manhole covers, High-speed Rail train anti collision structure, High-speed Rail train sound barrier, safety school bus ,and so on[1]. The Special Properties of Aluminum Foam The Aluminum Tube Column Absorbing Energy by Filling Aluminum Foam The stress strain curve of aluminum tube column filled with aluminum foam were measured and its drawing shown in figure .1. The initial aluminum feed tube is easy to pressure to collapse, not equilibrium deformation; aluminum foam has balance the deformation, strain rate is higher, but lower compression strength; aluminum tube filled with aluminum foam has high compressive strength, and can be steady deformation, deformation curved line in phase domain integral under the largest area, suction the highest energy,it is the best absorbing energy material[2] The Electromagnetic Shielding Property of Aluminum Foam The aluminum foam sheet with density of 0.32g/cm 3 , 0.40g/cm 3 , 0.74g/cm 3 were measured electromagnetic shielding effectiveness shown in Figure.2, when the electromagnetic wave frequency is below 200MH, the shielding rate of 90 dB, when the electromagnetic wave frequency 1000MH shielding rate is about 70 dB[3]. Anti Bullet Penetration Performance of Aluminum Foam The armor penetration test structure on alumina ceramic plate/ aluminum foam,/Kevlar fiber board composite is shown in Figure. 3 Because the energy absorbing effect of aluminum foam, the International Conference on Material Science and Application (ICMSA 2015) © 2015. The authors Published by Atlantis Press 869 elastic impact area increases several times, that is, the projectile impact force on per unit area is reduced several times, thus blocking projectiles penetrating. Fig.1 Packing aluminum foam stress strain curves Fig .2 Foam aluminum electromagnetic 1)foam aluminum/aluminum tube 2)crushing tubes Shielding effectiveness 3 ) aluminum foam 4) paper honeycomb Damping Properties of the Explosive Shock Wave in Aluminum Foam The propagation attenuation curve drawing of blast shock wave in steel / aluminum foam / steel sandwich board is shown in Figure 4, the 520Mpa shock wave peak decay rapidly, close to 0, through 20mm thickness of aluminum foam[2]. Fig. 3 Aluminum foam sandwich bullet proof Fig. 4 Shock wave attenuation curve peak in Penetration effect aluminum foam Load Strength Properties of Aluminum Foam Sandwich The load strength of steel plate / aluminum foam aluminum sandwich panels was measured by three point flexural strength , it is shown in figure. 5. When the thickness of the aluminum foam is 10mm,its bending strength will be double than the two layers strength. It can be see that the bending strength increased with the increase of aluminum foam thickness[4]. The Typical Engineering Application of Aluminum Foam Material Light Explosion Door The existing explosion-proof door adopts reinforced concrete and steel plate structure, its total thickness is 300 ~ 400mm. Maximum antiknock ability of the explosion door is about 3Mpa, but its weight is 20 ~ 30 tons, so opening and closing difficulty. The light explosion-proof door structure made of aluminum foam as Figure .6 ,its panel are made of carbon steel plate of 5mm thickness and intermediate aluminum foam is about 100mm thickness. The antiknock ability of this kind of