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School of Engineering and Information Technology, UNSW Canberra, ACT 2610, Australia
Department of Applied Mathematics, Australian National University, Canberra ACT 0200, Australia
c
Electron Microscope Unit, Mark Wainwright Analytical Centre (MWAC), The University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia
d
Microscopy and Microanalysis Facility (MMF), John de Laeter Centre (JdLC), Curtin University, WA 6102, Australia
b
art ic l e i nf o
a b s t r a c t
Article history:
Received 3 March 2016
Accepted 15 April 2016
Available online 23 April 2016
This study investigates the inuence of microstructure on the strength properties of individual cell walls
of closed-cell stabilized aluminium foams (SAFs). Optical microscopy (OM), micro-computed X-ray tomography (m-CT), electron backscattering diffraction (EBSD), and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy
(EDS) analyses were conducted to examine the microstructural properties of SAF cell walls. Novel microtensile tests were performed to investigate the strength properties of individual cell walls. Microstructural analysis of the SAF cell walls revealed that the material consists of eutectic Al-Si and dendritic
a-Al with an inhomogeneous distribution of intermetallic particles and micro-pores (void defects). These
microstructural features affected the micro-mechanism fracture behaviour and tensile strength of the
specimens. Laser-based extensometer and digital image correlation (DIC) analyses were employed to
observe the strain elds of individual tensile specimens. The tensile failure mode of these materials has
been evaluated using microstructural analysis of post-mortem specimens, revealing a brittle cleavage
fracture of the cell wall materials. The micro-porosities and intermetallic particles reduced the strength
under tensile loading, limiting the elongation to fracture on average to 3.2% and an average ultimate
tensile strength to 192 MPa. Finally, interactions between crack propagation and obstructing intermetallic compounds during the tensile deformation have been elucidated.
& 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords:
Closed-cell foams
Microstructure
Micro-tensile
Cell wall properties
1. Introduction
Closed-cell aluminium foams are well known for their unique
physical and mechanical properties, including, but not limited to:
ultra-lightweight, high specic strength, high stiffness and extraordinary energy absorption capabilities during compressive loading. These characteristics appeal to numerous applications in
aerospace, civil and defence engineering as well as protective
equipment [14]. It is well known that mechanical performance of
closed-cell foams macroscopically depends on relative density and
geometric features such as cell size and cell wall thickness [57].
Numerous experimental [812] and numerical [1315] investigations into the structural behaviour of metallic foams have been
extensively carried out over the past two decades; primarily focusing on geometric parameters relating the cell structure to
mechanical performance. One the other hand, the effect of
n
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: J.Escobedo-Diaz@adfa.edu.au (J.P. Escobedo).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.msea.2016.04.046
0921-5093/& 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
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M.A. Islam et al. / Materials Science & Engineering A 666 (2016) 245256
of ductility and an increase in brittleness [2527]. Thus, it is expected that the resultant cast material is likely to exhibit different
mechanical behaviours than the base alloy material.
Several studies have aimed to mechanically test individual
struts from open cell foams [19,28,29]. However, the cell size and
shape distribution in closed-cell foams is not homogeneous, which
leads to challenges when fabricating specimens for tensile tests
from the cell walls. To the authors knowledge, comprehensive
studies of individual cell-wall strength properties of closed-cell
metallic foams are currently unavailable in the open literature.
This is important for simulating the behaviour of these materials
under structural loads, quasi-static and dynamic [30]. Hence, it is
of interest to investigate strength properties of individual cell
walls of closed-cell aluminium foams, which are the building
blocks of the entire cellular structure. In depth microstructural
analyses of SAF cell walls and its inuence on foamed materials are
essential since the alloying compositions may alter the crystallography and microstructural features. In this research, systematic
microstructural characterization of cell wall materials is performed using optical microscopy, EBSD and SEM/EDS analysis.
Furthermore, tensile strength and failure behaviour of individual
cell walls have been provided via micro-tensile testing.
Table 1
The weight percent composition of the base SAF alloy.
Name
Al
Si
Fe
Cu
Mg
Mn
Ti
Zn
Percentage
(weight)
Table 2
Physical properties of closed-cell aluminium foams.
Density (g/
cc)
Porosity (%)
0.17 70.1
6.30 7 0.25
0.10 70.02
3. Experimental observations
2.2. Microstructural examination
3.1. Cell-wall microstructure
Cell wall specimens were sectioned using a high precision
cutting blade to avoid damaging the specimen. The ne cut cellwall parts were embedded in an acrylic resin in both the throughthickness and in-plane orientations. Microstructural observations
of cell-wall materials of the SAFs were carried out using OM, m-CT,
scanning electron microscopy, EDS and EBSD analysis. All metallographic procedures for the sample preparation for the aforementioned analyses have been carried out using a Struers automated polisher for mechanical grinding with silica-carbide paper
through nal polishing steps using colloidal silica suspension in a
vibratory polisher. The samples used for EBSD analysis were
M.A. Islam et al. / Materials Science & Engineering A 666 (2016) 245256
247
Fig. 1. Experimental overview: (a) example of an exhumed tensile specimen from a cell wall; (b) schematic of experimental setup.
Fig. 2. Microstructure of cell-wall materials of SAFs. The cell wall has been magnied into four subsets: (a) eutectic aluminium particle coverage of 0%, (b) particles dispersed
around a micro-pore and overall particle coverage of 10%, (c) 12% and (d) 15%.
The distribution of particles visible from the cell wall crosssections are shown in Fig. 2. It is observed that the particles
coverage in regions of the cell wall cross-section varied from 0 to
20% (Fig. 2ad), with a global area fraction of 7.50%. The distributions of these intermetallic particles are heterogeneous over the
surface of the cell wall and are predominantly found near the wall
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M.A. Islam et al. / Materials Science & Engineering A 666 (2016) 245256
boundaries and plateau borders, or, cell wall joints. This mosaic
distribution of the particles along the cross-section and surface of
the cell wall can be further organized with size and shape. It is
shown that larger particles were mainly concentrated directly on
cell wall surfaces whereas smaller particles are heavily concentrated around the micro-pores and near the free surface edges.
In addition to dispersive intermetallic compounds, an irregular
distribution of micro-pores and micro-cracks were observed. The
size of the micro-pores varied from 5 mm to 80 mm and microcrack lengths were observed exceeding 80 mm in some locations. It
is proposed that these micro-pores are a result from the microbubbles developing inside the cell wall during isothermal holding
of molten alloy after the gas injection.
It was found that all micro-pores are surrounded by particles
(Fig. 2bd); however, all particles are not accumulated around
micro-pores and are dispersed throughout the cell walls. High
particle densities were observed near the plateau border of the cell
walls compared to central regions of the cell walls. Fig. 2(ad)
show regions containing approximately 0%, 5%, 10% and 20% localized area fraction of particles to metal matrix. In short, the
particles agglomeration on the cell wall of the foam can be random, surface segregation and cluster type. Closed cell metal foams
without particles are not possible since the stabilization of foaming is inherently relying on the particles addition [32]. The role of
Fig. 3. Micro-CT images of a cell wall. Black regions within the cell wall material are from porosity and micro-cracks, while the lighter grey regions represent the ceramic
particles distribution. The orientations shown are: (a) the cell wall surface, (b) plateau border (cell wall joint), (c) cross-section of the cell wall, (d) 3D reconstruction of cell
wall and (e) total void distribution in a cell wall material.
M.A. Islam et al. / Materials Science & Engineering A 666 (2016) 245256
249
Fig. 5. Cell wall geometry: (a) thickness distribution between two wall joint (plateau border) and (b) Cell-wall thickness distribution of the specimen 12.
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M.A. Islam et al. / Materials Science & Engineering A 666 (2016) 245256
thickness is not uniform throughout the specimen length; thicknesses of cell walls were varied between the plateau borders. Fig. 5
(a) shows the typical thickness distribution of cell walls between
two plateau borders (sample 12), which exhibited the approximate
average thickness values across all specimens. As observed in
Fig. 5, the thickness remains 100 710 mm within the constant wall
thickness section, with few local inhomogeneities.
Fig. 6 shows optical micrographs typical cell wall cross-section.
It was observed that the microstructure along the cross-section is
almost identical to the microstructure along longitudinal surface.
The particle distribution is again random with micro-pores and
micro-cracks present along the cross-section of cell wall.
Fig. 6. Cross-section of cell walls (left) and microstructure through thickness of cell wall.
M.A. Islam et al. / Materials Science & Engineering A 666 (2016) 245256
251
Fig. 7. Experimental full longitudinal strain eld (yy) of the specimen resulting from the tensile test.
camera (Canon 70D) was placed 0.5 m away from the specimen
and was positioned perpendicular to the specimen surface to avoid
artifacts from false out of plane distortion. A continuous video
recording of 2D deformation was taken for each sample. A LED
light source was used to illuminate the specimen for optimal image quality. The recordings were segmented into 100 images
(1280 1024 pixels) with an initial undeformed image used as a
reference image and a time interval between images was set at
15 s to capture the entire strain to failure process. The measurement of displacements on the surface of the sample and calculation of strains were performed using open image processing
software Ncorr and were later veried using commercial image
analysis software Vic-2D. The DIC analysis process was followed
similar to [36].
The DIC analyses show that the strain measured using the laser
extensometer and normal extensometer were equivalent to within
75%. Aside from an initial strain reading, the extensometer
reading was slightly larger than the DIC measurements. Fig. 7
shows the strain eld and measured strain of three representative
specimens at various stages of deformation. The strain and displacement elds obtained by DIC software reveal a wide variation
in the material responses between specimens. This is likely due to
casting defects varying between samples: porosity size differences
and inhomogeneity in the porosity and ceramic particle distributions. Consequently, the tensile behaviour of cell wall samples of
SAF demonstrated a range of tensile strengths, as discussed in the
next section.
Table 3
Test summary.
Specimen No. Yield stress
(MPa) 0.2%
offset
Modulus of
Elasticity (GPa)
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
26
29
31
211
191
175
186
172
210
191
187
198
208
188
196
182
164
217
206
191
195
193
172
184
207
237
168
207
2.79
2.69
3.21
2.46
2.63
3.42
3.24
3.36
3.81
3.41
3.39
3.25
2.81
3.45
3.38
2.8
3.56
3.91
3.12
3.81
3.7
2.75
3.41
3.51
2.87
11.21
9.20
8.78
11.31
7.84
7.71
9.57
8.89
9.6
9.88
12.70
13.35
9.78
9.50
11.25
8.5
9.85
8.54
9.41
10.58
9.21
11.41
12.44
8.72
10.22
141
127
137
121
128
148
146
135
128
133
148
135
143
124
138
132
128
131
121
131
132
148
127
141
138
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M.A. Islam et al. / Materials Science & Engineering A 666 (2016) 245256
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the metal matrix and particles takes place. It is considered that the
cleavage occurred rstly in the more brittle -AlFeSi second phase
particles, which are present throughout the entire cell wall. Only a
small portion of area was fractured in ductile manner, evident
from the minimal necking of -Al as the cell wall contains a large
amount of the relatively hard and brittle -AlFeSi particles. As a
result, cracks propagate through the randomly oriented network
of intermetallic phase and fracture path is trans-granular. Although the cell walls are considered to be multicrystalline due to
the large grain size in relation to the cell wall thickness, the grain
boundaries do not play a signicant role in the fracture behaviour
in this uniaxial tensile experiment.
The average tensile response was compared to the tensile response of the nearest base alloy available found in the open literature [39,40]. It is found that the tensile strength for the individual cell-wall of SAFs is lower than its nearest base alloy
properties (Fig. 11). Moreover, strain to failure of cell wall materials
is approximately half of the base alloy materials. Accountability for
this low strain to failure again can be ascribed to porosities in cell
wall materials and mismatching of elastic energy of intermetallic
particles and metal matrix.
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Fig. 11. Average stress-strain curve of cell-wall materials of SAF and base alloy.
Fig. 12. Crack propagation during tensile failure for specimen. (af) represents different location of crack propagation.
4.2. Microstructure
Variation in the nal elongation and UTS of the specimens are
considerable, 31% and 34%, respectively, therefore; two specimens
have been chosen that are characteristic of the lowest and highest
strain to failure for post mortem analysis of the fracture surface to
elucidate the roll of microstructure on crack propagation.
The strain eld of specimen 6 (lowest elongation, 2.6%) shows
that the deformation remains limited in a narrow lateral strip of
the specimen (Fig. 10). Conversely, specimen 27 exhibits larger
deformation (4.2%) to failure. Tensile specimens 6 and 27 are further analyzed by means of OM to investigate the variation of
elongation as is shown by Figs. 12 and 13. From comparing the
microstructure of longitudinal section of the fractured surface of
these two specimens, it was found that along the crack path of
M.A. Islam et al. / Materials Science & Engineering A 666 (2016) 245256
255
Fig. 13. Crack propagation during tensile failure; (af) represent different location of crack propagation.
Finally, the cell wall materials have demonstrated brittle behaviour due to the b-AlFeSi phase as shown in the EDS analysis.
Ductility of the cell wall is expected to increase if the Fe and Si
content in the alloy are reduced. According to Miserez et al. and
Dutta et al. [41,42], heat treatment of the material may increase
the ductility since it transform from b-AlFeSi phase to a-AlFeSi
phase, however; heat treatment of the closed cell foam is a complex process and the internal gas pressure inside the cell may
cause further reduction of strength.
5. Conclusions
The microstructure along with the uniaxial tensile and deformation behaviours of individual cell wall elements of closedcell SAF was studied. From this study, it is clear that the nature of
the microstructure (void defects and particles) of the cell walls has
a signicant effect on the mechanical behaviour of closed-cell SAF.
The following specic conclusions can be drawn from the investigation of microstructural and strength properties of SAFs:
1. The microstructure of the cell wall materials of closed cell aluminium alloy foams reveal that the cell wall materials consist of
eutectic Al-Si and dendritic -Al structure with an irregular
distribution of intermetallic particles, micro-pores and microcracks. The grains were, on average, on a similar length scale as
the thickness of the cell walls; varying in size between
50 700 mm.
2. DIC analysis showed the strain elds of individual cell wall
specimens during the tensile loading. Narrow DIC displacement
and strain elds with respect to the loading direction were
prevalent in specimens that underwent lower strains to failure.
Post mortem OM analysis along the crack path showed such
specimens contained larger voids and irregular particle depositions across the areas of localized strain shown in the DIC
analysis.
3. Tensile behaviour of cell wall elements of SAFs demonstrated a
range of (UTS: 164 211 MPa) tensile strengths. Post-mortem
analysis of fractured surface provided insight into the micromechanics of cell wall failure. The failure has been observed as
combination of little ductile tearing and largely cleavage fracture. The presence of micro-pores and micro-cracks provided a
natural path of crack propagation. Specically, the combination
of high void fraction regions and b-AlFeSi was the preferred
pathway of crack propagation. Moreover, the mismatch of
elastic and plastic properties between particles and metal matrix resulted in brittle fracture of the specimens.
4. Finally, future optimization of the closed cell metallic foam
clearly require the understanding of the interplay between
processing condition, cell wall microstructure and mechanical
characterization under various types of applied load.
Acknowledgements
The authors gratefully acknowledge the UNSW Canberra Defence Related Research Scheme that part-funded this work. The
authors would like to thank Pat Nolan for the modication of
tensile setup. M. A. I also thanks David Sharp for his insightful
suggestions on sample preparation for micro analysis. Finally, authors thankfully acknowledge the laboratory facility provided by
Department of Applied Mathematics, Australian National University for the m-CT and image analysis.
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