<p>Metal foam, a new class of metals, is inspired by naturally occurring, functionally graded, cellular structures like wood and bones. Metal foams are categorised into two groups depending upon the morphology of the cells. These are closed-cell and open-cell. Metal foams are air/metal composites and can display a combination of properties. Like for example, some of the properties of metals (such as high electrical and thermal conductivity, ductile failure at high stress, etc) with some of the properties of a porous structure (such as permeability to fluids, low density, etc). These are the combinations that are impossible to achieve with any other material. Hence metal foam is finding an increasing demand in many industrial applications such as lightweight structures, filters, electrodes, catalysts, sound attenuation, biomedical implants, thermal insulations and heat exchangers to name a few. Since metal foam is a novel concept, the initial and foremost challenges include the development and establishment of the metal foam database. The databases are required to assess more about the opportunities and to implement the foamed material suitable for innovative engineering applications. It is crucial to evaluate the economical ways of manufacturing and, determining its properties in-depth with modelling and experimental verification. More knowledge about stability would allow to tailor foams such that they could be processed more reliably, exhibit uniformly distributed cells and correspondingly show a smaller variance of mechanical properties. Therefore, this work presents a review of the traditional and the state of the art manufacturing methods adopted to manufacture foam till dated. Some of the techniques are used for foaming aqueous or polymer liquids, whereas some other techniques are tailored for metal foam synthesis considering characteristics of metals such as the fact that they can be electrically deposited or their heat treatments like sintering activity. Furthermore, the merits and demerits of all these processing techniques are discussed. Since metal foams are a new type of engineering material and have randomness in the micro and macrostructure, their characterization needs advanced research. Apart from the above objectives, the current review paper also focusses to conduct an extensive critical review on mechanical and physical data characteristics of the developed cellular metals. &nbsp;A detailed study of the technological characterization of components containing the cellular metals are of great importance since the apparent moduli and strength of foam test samples are influenced by the gripping and loading of the specimens. Also, fluid flow characterization through the metal foam is discussed, because of the importance of this point in many industrial applications of foam such as filters, energy absorbers and heat exchangers. Lastly, a summary of the most relevant applications, advantages and disadvantages with actual examples are presented.</p>

Recent Developments in Processing and Characterization of Metal Foam: Review Developments in Processing and Characterization of Metal Foam: A Review

Paper Proceedings: https://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/IMECE/IMECE2021/volume/85543

ASME 2021 International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition (IMECE2021)

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