中国有色金属学报(英文版)
Transactions of Nonferrous Metals Society of China
| Vol. 21 No. 2 February 2011 |
aluminum foams with ZrH2 as foaming agent
（1. Department of Chemistry, College of Science, Northeastern University, Shenyang 110004, China;
2. Forensic Science & Technology Department, China Criminal Police University, Shenyang 110854, China;
3. Engineering and Researching Centre of Advanced Preparation Technology of Materials,
School of Materials and Metallurgy, Northeastern University, Shenyang 110004, China）
Abstract:Aluminum foams were fabricated by melt-based route using ZrH2 as a foaming agent. The factors which affected the foaming of aluminum foams during casting process were investigated. The powdered zirconium hydride with content of 0.6%−1.4% (mass fraction) was added to the molten pure aluminum and the foaming condition was controlled in a temperature range from 933 to 1 013 K, Ca amount of 1.5%−3.0% (mass fraction), stirring time of 0.5−2.5 min and holding time of 1.5−4.0 min to obtain homogeneous aluminum foams. The fabricated aluminum foams were characterized by XRD, SEM and Image-pro plus. The mechanical properties of the aluminum foams with different relative density were tested. The result indicates that the foaming agent (ZrH2) is suitable for the preparation of small aperture aluminum foams with average pore diameter of 1 mm. Inter-metallic compounds and Al2O3 have effect on the melt viscosity. The aluminum foams experience linear elastic, platforms and densification process and had a higher efficiency of energy absorption.
Key words: aluminum foams; zirconium hydride; bubble; melt-based route
