Talk:Metal foam

More details on Composite Closed Foams ?

Are there any more details on composite closed foams ?

For example :

Ideal shape for beads ?

Spherical ? Perhaps cylinders for axial stresses ?

Ideal density and packing of beads ?

What is the theory behind the density of hollow beads to non- bead metal? Should they be touching & closely packed (ex : adjacent spheres or cylinders (perhaps creating a wrapped honeycomb structure?)

Should beads be organized within the foam ?

Using composite foam (presumably where the beads have a higher melting point than the surrounding metal) one might have substantial control over the organization of the beads. For example, one could create a preexisting frame / scaffold for the high melting point beads and pour the low boiling point metal over it, or perhaps even use differences in magnetism to move beads around molten material.

Should beads be highly organized or entropic ?

Ideal sizes for composite beads

Should beads be large or small or a mixture of sizes ? What are the theoretical issues here ?

Compressibility of Beads

How compressible should the beads be ? Theoretically, What is going on here ? Is the goal to create small “Crumple zones” within the foam to spread the force and dissipate it? Or is it essentially to create a 3-D truss system or quasi honeycomb within the foam ?

Should the beads help increase the elasticity of the foam under rapid compression or spread the force and generate heat?

Should the beads have uniform compressibility or diverse or carefully interspersed?

Should the beads be hollow or filled and if so with what ?

Should beads be filled with air or some other gas? If so, at high or low pressure?

Elastomers inside beads?

Should beads be filled with difficult to compress liquids or perhaps elastomers or even tempered materials ? What are the theoretical considerations here ?

Non Newtonian fluids or reactive fluids inside beads?

If the goal is to rapidly spread and dissipate a severe shock, would non Newtonian fluids or even free radical reactants (stored separately within beads) help ? Any analogies to reactive / active armor but on a very small scale ?

Current Electric vehicle, Naval and Space applications ?

Are ships being made with closed Composite metal foams ? (Perhaps coated with elastomers). This would be light, strong and impact resisting.

How about Space based applications?

(Also, how is the tensile strength for high rise buildings?)

Comments

I've added an image of an open cell foam and a mention of closed cell foams - as they're also quite a widespread material. This does not sit easily in the structure of the 'foams' page, where metal foams are currently listed as a subset of open cell foams - maybe worth rearranging.

The Defining Characteristic

"The defining characteristic of metal foams is a very high porosity: typically 75-95% of the volume consists of void spaces." I was thinking that the defining characteristic would be: "Being made out of metal, and also a foam". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.177.229.187 (talk) 09:50, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Aluminum foams and the Oklo reactor

the article says: "naturally formed Aluminum foams have been found in the Oklo reactor... " This information seems incorect. Aluminum is highly unstable in geological formation, and never found in metallic form. This looks like somebody wanted to make a joke... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.105.37.155 (talk) 05:18, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Definitely seems to be purposefully injected false info. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.98.236.210 (talk) 14:32, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

More uses?

The article in this iste: [Aluminum Foam] talks about this subject, talking about the use of Aluminum Foam to armour and impact absorvers.Agre22 (talk) 03:13, 23 May 2009 (UTC)agre22

More information about using metal foam for body armor to stop ballistics: Ballistic performance of composite metal foams Cyberbytli (talk) 22:54, 19 June 2016 (UTC)

References

Latticed metal foam?

I recall reading about former-Soviet classified technologies entering the workplace, one of them was described as a technique to foam metal with the bubbles forming a perfect grid structure for extremely high structural strength ... urban legend?

—Hobart (talk) 15:33, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Commodity

The introduction states "metal foams cannot be considered a commodity". For a reader unfamiliar with the subject, what is the meaning of this statement? Arbitrarily0 ^(talk) 18:43, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

I'm guessing the author means that metal foams are custom manufactured as needed, rather than a commercial off-the-shelf commodity material. However, that seems to conflict with the fact that "About 186,000 tonnes of titanium metal sponge were produced in 2011" (which sounds like a commodity to me) according to the titanium sponge article. Could someone more familiar with the subject please clarify? --DavidCary (talk) 15:13, 27 December 2015 (UTC)

Copyright problem removed

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Draft:Composite metal foam

Please consider incorporating material from the above draft submission into this article. Drafts are eligible for deletion after 6 months of inactivity. ~Kvng (talk) 16:49, 23 June 2022 (UTC)