Materials and Design 55 (2014) 792–797

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Materials and Design

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Technical Report

A study of fabricating and compressive properties of cellular Al–Si

(355.0) foam using TiH2
Jalal Kahani Khabushan a,⇑, Soheila Bazzaz Bonabi a, Fatemeh Moghaddasi Aghbagh a,
Amin Kahani Khabushan b
a
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Semnan University, Semnan, Iran
b
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Shahid Montazeri Technical University, Mashhad, Iran

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Al–Si (355.0) alloy foam has been produced by Alporas method (in which foam alloy melts, and titanium
Received 5 November 2012 hydride is used as a blowing agent). Mechanical behavior such as quasi-static compression (strain–stress
Accepted 9 October 2013 curves, energy absorption capacity), also the effects of thermal properties on the macroscopic structure of
Available online 24 October 2013
the produced foam were investigated. In addition, the effect of energy absorption capacity on percentage
porosity has also been studied. The research shows that the produced foam with an average cell size and
proper distribution has a more mechanical stability compared to the foams with no such characteristics.
It was found that yield strength tends to increase from 12.51 MPa for porosity 74.0% to 22.32 MPa for
porosity 54.0%. This foam has also been compared with other foams such as Al-pure foam and Mg foam.
It can be stated that Al–Si (355.0) foam has a higher yield strength in comparison to Al-pure foam and Mg
foam.
Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction manufacture aluminum metal foam and aluminum alloy foams

In recent years, metallic foams have been of an interest to
researchers. Due to their scientific properties, they are of many
uses in industry [1]. Among metal foams, aluminum foams, due
to having light weight structure, have found many applications.
Due to causing high energy absorbing, high specific stiffness, high
specific strength, acoustic state and thermal insulating properties,
they have been found suitable for many applications [2]. These me-
tal foams have undergone great development [3]. Among metal
foams, aluminum foam and aluminum alloy foams have had more
development in applications [4], such as railway industry, insula-
tion, filters, airplanes and aerospace, sport equipments [5], also
car industry, applicable in crash boxes, frames, bumpers and hoods
where improvement in safety and weight reduction are considered
[6]. These materials with unique properties making them an ideal
material, such as sandwich panels that have high energy absorbing,
sound absorbing, protection structures and light weight composite
armor systems to use ballistic protection of military vehicles [7].
Nowadays, engineering materials need suitable structures with
light weight. Meanwhile they should have high stiffness and high
energy absorbing capacity. Therefore, experts need to seek more
about metal foams [8–10]. Many different methods are used to
⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +98 915 8232396; fax: +98 231 3354119.
E-mail addresses: jalal_kahani@yahoo.com, jalal_kahani@students.semnan.ac.ir
(J. Kahani Khabushan).
[11] which include solid-state foaming method [12], powder met-
allurgy method (PM) [13], vacuum foaming method [14], high
pressure casting method [15], and aluminum foams made by the
melt – foaming method [16], which is a suitable method to make
aluminum foam and aluminum alloy foams. The effective situation
on aluminum alloy foams can improve physical and mechanical
properties of these materials such as: the pore shape, pores size,
distance between pores and pores number. It can be inferred from
this experiment that it is influential to hold temperature on the
bulk porosity, pores number, pores distribution and mechanical
properties such as their energy absorption capacity characteristics
and compressive behavior [17]. The aim of this paper is to study
fabricating and compressive properties of cellular Al–Si (355.0)
foam using TiH2. Microstructure and mechanical properties of the
foam were also investigated.
2. Experimental procedure
2.1. Materials
In the present work, the main matrix of these metal foams is
aluminum–silicon (355.0) cast alloy. The Al–Si (355.0) type alloy,
belonging to the Al–Si alloy system, is represented respectively
by the 3xx.x series of alloy which is an important alloy in industry.
This alloy has properties such as the melt temperature of 620 °C
and a density of 2.71 g/cm3 at 20 °C, with a freezing range of Al–

0261-3069/$ - see front matter Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.matdes.2013.10.022
 J. Kahani Khabushan et al. / Materials and Design 55 (2014) 792–797
Si (355.0) being between 545 and 620 °C[18]. On the other hand,
titanium hydride (TiH2) powder is formulated according to the fol-
lowing chemical reaction TiH2 (s) ? Ti(s) + H2 (g). In this paper, the
cellular Al–Si (355.0) foams with the melt-foaming method are
fabricated by means of 1.5 percent of TiH2 as a blowing agent
and the different hold temperature (from 560 to 600 °C) within
5 min and the different porosity between 56.5 and 74 percent
[1,17].
2.2. Processing method
This study is based on experimental procedure involving a
number of steps; step (1): Al–Si (355.0) alloy melts in a crucible
furnace under the temperature of 710 °C. The chemical composi-
tion of this alloy is shown in Table 1. This chemical composition
has been analyzed by the quantometre machine. As it is shown
in Table 1, the alloy percentage of titanium has increased from
0.25 to 0.31 and the increase in percentage is due to using titanium
hydride as the blowing agent. Step (2): when the temperature of
this metal reaches 700 °C, 5 wt% of aluminum powder should be
added to the melt, (Al purity > 99.9 wt% with 50–60 lm in diame-
ter). Step (3): the blowing agent of titanium hydride is added using
1.5 wt%, (purity > 98 wt% and granularity of 50 lm), in the temper-
ature of 625–635 °C and the stirring rate of 1200 rpm. Step (4): the
melt of Al–Si (355.0) alloy was held in a crucible furnace in the
temperature of 560–600 °C to allow the blowing agent to be com-
pletely decomposed. Step (5): finally, the crucible should be taken
out from the furnace. Exposed to the room temperature, the cruci-
ble will cool down, which will lead to a closed cellular porosity
product [17–19].
The density and the porosity percentage, are key factors for
metallic foams. Meanwhile, very important and effective param-
eters for the structure of the alloy foam include porosity, pores
number, pores size, pores distribution [20]. In this paper, Archi-
medean rule is used to measure the density of the metal foam.
The porosity is one of the most important parameters in the me-
tal foams employing the following equation to calculate the bulk
porosity. Bulk porosity (Pr) refers to the fraction volume of all
the pores in a finished product of the Al–Si (355.0) alloy foam.
Here, (W) is mass, (V) is volume and q is the density of the
matrix.
V s  ðW=qÞ
Pr ¼  100%
Vs
The characteristics of the morphological structure of the pro-
duced foam are illustrated by the optical scanning microscopy
[4,17,21].
2.3. Testing procedures
Approximate dimensions of the specimens of the compression
test were 20 mm  20 mm  40 mm. Quasi-static compression
test is executed through using the universal testing machine in
the room temperature with 50 KN load and the rate of 1 mm/min
and the strain rate of 5.5  104 s1 [22]. Quasi-static compression
test results by computer are shown in the curves of the stress
Table 1
Chemical composition of Al–Si (355.0) alloy before and after addition of titanium hydride..
Material Weight%
Si Cu Mg
Before TiH2 addition 5.4 1.5 0.5
After TiH2 addition 5.4 1.5 0.46
793
(r)–strain (e) [23]. Finding the cellular size is based on the method
used by ASTM: D 3576 cell size of rigid cellular plastics. Note: the
density is dependent on cell size and pores number in the pro-
duced foams. In addition to the change upon the density, the pore
size of the produced foams changes from the range of 0.7–2.4 mm.
The pictures belonging to the samples of the product foams and
samples of the product for compression test are shown in Fig. 1
(a–d). The following formula is related to the under area of the
strain–stress curve and can be used to calculate the capacity of
the energy absorption [24,25].
Z e
w¼ rðeÞde ð2Þ
0
The densification strain and compressive stress are respectively
e and r in formula (2).
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Hold-temperature
An important parameter is the porosity and hold-temperature
of the metal foam made by the melt-foaming [25]. Also using prop-
er hold-temperature, we can gain high porosity. Fig. 2 illustrates
the relation between foaming hold-temperature of Al–Si foam with
the porosity percentage. Porosity increases with the rise of hold-
temperature up to 590 °C. After this point, porosity decreases due
to the reaction, which takes place far sooner than expected. This
reaction is between TiH2 and the molten and releases a large num-
ber of gas bubbles out of the molten. The figure confirms the fact
that between 585–600 °C, there is the highest percentage of poros-
ity [1,3,11].
It is noteworthy that the porosity increases with the increase
of pores, with the parameter of hold-temperature having a signif-
icant impact on the conditions. The proper temperature can
cause a full reaction between the molten and titanium hydride.
This factor leads to the release of more hydrogen and produces
more bubbles in the sample; hence more pores will be made at
last. Fig. 3 illustrates the effect of foam hold-temperature on
the pores number. The more hold-temperature, the higher the
ð1Þ pores number will be. This is true until temperature reaches
590 °C. All this happens because the molten viscosity decreases.
After reaching 590 °C, the number of pores decreases as the tem-
perature rises. The reason for this is a severe decline in viscosity,
while the mean of the pores size increases. One of the important
features of the pieces is the isotropic properties [19,22]. In the
metal foams, the uniformity of pores size throughout the piece
is one of the factors affecting the property, with the appropriate
temperature range being achieved partly on account of these
properties. Fig. 4 illustrates the relation between foaming hold-
temperature with the average pore size of Al–Si (355.0) foam.
The mean pore size increases as the foaming temperature rises;
this also indicates the point that the average pore size of the
foam at 545 °C, 590 °C and 610 °C, respectively, is 0.75 mm,
1.6 mm and 2.2 mm.
Mn Fe Ti Zn Cr Other
0.5 0.6 0.25 0.35 0.25 0.05
0.49 0.67 0.31 0.33 0.25 0.05
794 J. Kahani Khabushan et al. / Materials and Design 55 (2014) 792–797
Fig. 1. (a–d) Structure of Al–Si (355.0) cellular foam which is produced.
Fig. 2. Show the effect of foaming hold temperature on the porosity of Al–Si (355.0)
foam.
3.2. Mechanical testing
Fig. 5 illustrates compression stress–strain curves of cellular Al–
Si (355.0) foam with the specimens of the porosity range of 54%,
63% and 74%. The specimens show linear elasticity, an initial peak
stress, a plateau and densification region [4,7]. As it can be under-
stood from Fig. 5, the yield strength of Al–Si (355.0) cellular foams
has a tendency to increase with the porosity which is decreasing.
So, the yield strength increases from 12.51 MPa for the percentage
porosity of 74.0% to 22.32 MPa for the porosity percentage of 54.0%
and for the porosity of 63.0% the yield strength is nearly 16.53 MPa.
Besides, the yield strength depends on the porosity percentage, cel-
lular pore distribution, cellular pore size and average pore number
in the metal foam.
Fig. 6 indicates that the compression stress–strain curves of
cellular Al–Si (355.0) foam with the porosity percentage of 63.0%,
Fig. 3. Shows the effect of foam hold temperature of the pores number.
cellular Mg foam with the porosity percentage of 66.5% in [19]
and cellular Al-pure foam. In all the curves, it is shown that there
are three regions: linear elasticity, a plateau and densification re-
gion [4.7,19]. In this figure, the yield strength of Mg foam is nearly
7.50 MPa and the yield strength of Al-pure foam is nearly
13.60 MPa and for Al–Si (355.0) foam it is 17.83 MPa. In fact, the
yield strength of the foam material is dependent on the type of
the metal used. Based on what is discussed, this article specifies
that Al–Si (355.0) foam has a higher yield strength than Al-pure
foam and Mg foam. Also it can be said that the properties of Al-
pure foam is nearly close to Al–Si (355.0) and also the starting
point for densification region is approximately equal for both of
the foams. Of course, these two foams, taking other properties into
account, have differences which are beyond the prospect of this
article. Compared to Al–Si (355.0), Al-pure contains more uniform
characteristics.
 J. Kahani Khabushan et al. / Materials and Design 55 (2014) 792–797
Fig. 4. Shows the effect of foaming hold temperature on the mean of the pore size
of the corresponding Al–Si (355.0) foam.
Fig. 5. Shows the compression stress–strain curves of cellular Al–Si (355.0) foam
with the specimens of porosity range of 54%, 63% and 74%.
Fig. 6. Shows the compression stress–strain curves of Al–Si (355.0) foam with the
porosity percentage of 63.0%, cellular Mg foam with the porosity percentage of
66.5% [19] and cellular Al-pure foam.
795
Fig. 7. Shows the effect on the porosity percentage of energy absorption capacity of
the foam.
Fig. 8. Shows the effect on the porosity percentage of the yield strength of the Mg
foam [19], Al–Si (355.0) foam, and Al-pure foam.
The energy absorption of the metallic foam is one of the most
important features and this unique feature leads to extensive use
of metal foam in the industry [4,11,20]. Formula (2), related to
the bottom area of the strain–stress curve, can be used to calculate
the energy absorption capacity. Fig. 7 shows the effect of the poros-
ity percentage on energy absorption capacity. The energy absorp-
tion capacity of cellular Al–Si (355.0) foam, Al-pure foam and Mg
foam increases with the porosity decreasing. The energy absorp-
tion capacity of Al–Si (355.0) foam is 12.06 (MJ/m3) with the poros-
ity of 52.0%, while the energy absorption decreases to 6.72 (MJ/m3)
as porosity increases to 74.0% and the energy absorption capacity
in the porosity of 64.0% is 9.10 (MJ/m3). As a result of this, this pa-
per indicates that the energy absorption capacity of the Mg foam is
lower than Al–Si (355.0) foam. However, the energy absorption
capacity of Al-pure foam is close to Al–Si (355.0) foam.
For metal foams, the peak stress is determined by the yield
strength (ry) [4]. The properties of the yield strength concerning
Al–Si (355.0) foams reaching the 58% porosity are between pure
aluminum foam and magnesium foam. But after this point, the
yield strength of Al–Si (355.0) foam decreases. As shown in Fig. 8
with the increase of the porosity from 54% to 63%, the yield
strength decreases respectively from 21.30 MPa to nearly
15.56 MPa. Of course with the porosity increasing, the yield
strength decreases because the stability and measure of the cell
796 J. Kahani Khabushan et al. / Materials and Design 55 (2014) 792–797
Fig. 9. Shows scanning electron microscopy (SEM) image of the Al–Si foam produced by the adding of foam agent TiH2 [17].
wall diminish. By comparing these, it can be found that the graph
of Al–Si (355.0) foam has further loss and the yield strength of the
three foams between the porosity percentage of 61% to 64% is
nearly close to one range.
As Fig. 9 indicates, the range of the cells wall thickness can be
between 0.1 and 0.7 mm. When the thickness of the cell walls in-
creases, the strength of the metal foam rises up; this is in accor-
dance to studies [7,26]. It should be noted, the thickness of the
cell walls depends on many factors, including the size of pores,
pore distribution, the addition percentage of the foam agent, hold-
ing temperature and other factors. The sample with normal wall
thickness and without crack, has high compressive strength, high
energy absorption and high yield strength. However, these factors
can affect on porosity and density. As, the increased cell wall thick-
ness, the higher density and lower porosity [19,25].
4. Conclusions
Alporas-produced Al–Si (355.0) alloy foam with the foam alloy
melts, and Titanium hydride is used as a blowing agent. Mechani-
cal behaviors of this studied foam include the quasi-static com-
pression and temperature effects. Results are as follows:
High porosity increases with the rise of hold temperature and
almost most temperature effects are between 580 and 600 °C.
Pores number increases with the rise of hold temperature until
590 °C, so the best hold temperature of this foam is between 585
and 605 °C because at this temperature viscosity is suitable which
is essential in producing foam with the melt-foaming method. It is
also concluded that in the hold-temperature of 590 °C, it has the
most pores and the highest porosity percentage. The mean of the
pore size of A–Si (355.0) foam increases as foaming hold tempera-
ture rises, also the mean of the pores size at 580–600 °C increases
from 1.12 mm to 1.75 mm. The yield strength of the foams tends to
increase while the porosity decreases. Also, the yield strength of
Al–Si (355.0) foam indicates that the increase from 12.51 MPa for
porosity of 74.0% to 22.32 MPa for the porosity of 54.0% and also
the energy absorption capacity increases from 6.72.12 to
12.06 (MJ/m3) with the decrease of porosity from 74.0% to 54.0%.
Also, the energy absorption and yield strength of Al–Si (355.0)
foam is more than Al-pure foam and Mg foam. Eventually, it can
be resulted that, the quantity of TiH2, holding temperature and
time were found to affect on the pores number, pore size, size dis-
tribution, porosity percentage, etc. Comparing with Al-pure and
Mg based foams, the cellular Al–Si (355.0) foams exhibit excellent
strength with good energy absorption capacity.
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