ALUPOR™   has high plastic deformation plateau and low Young's modulus that allow the material to absorb impact energy and effectively transform it to viscous friction heat. Comparing to foamed aluminum sponges, ALUPOR™ has higher mechanical properties that means less material volume is to be used for proper impact absorption. 

Property	Material type (graded by main pore size range), μm
	315-1000	630-1600	1600-3000
Porosity, %	55±5	55±5	55±5
Mean pore diameter, mm	0.66	1.12	2.3
Yield point at tensile, MPa	12.85	12.67	7.67
Young's modulus, GPa	1.72	1.69	1.56
Impact energy capacity at 20 MPa of impact load, MJ / m³	1.2	1.5	1.8

Energy Absorption

 

Between 1750 and 1850, a new kind of revolution started from England which was later knows as Industrial Revolution by the historians. The world we live in is the result of that revolution, the mass production of commodities, heavy machinery, etc. all are the result of advancements made in technology after Industrial Revolution.

Earlier, the goods were produced by people themselves and the production rate was very low, but the decades and centuries passed; machines started manufacturing those goods and the production rate also increased more than a thousand times. Industrial Revolution not only increased the rate of production but the rate of accidents and injuries while working were also greatly increased.

 

 

Impact Resistant Foam

The increment of injuries and accidents gave birth to a new sector which was later know as Health and Safety Sector which was related to health and safety of individuals.The main reason of most of the injuries is impact. Impact of an individual in many conditions cause severe brain injury, broken limb etc. These kind of injuries lead to a revolutionary kind of solution to minimise the damage of these accidents by using a material which can absorb the energy of the impact. The material which was introduced for this purpose was later known as foam. Foam is substance obtained as a result of trapping gas in liquid or solid. The gas pockets make foam very light weight and at the time of impact most of the energy is absorbed by the material and hence it helps in minimising the damage of impact.

 

Metal Foam Impact Dampers

Metal foam was first seen in 1926 by Meller in a French patent. Later two patents of sponge-like metal were given to Benjamin Sosnik in 1948 and 1951 for applying mercury vapour to blow liquid aluminium and creating the first aluminium metal foam. The commercial production of aluminium metal foam began in 1990s in Japan.

 

Basically there are two methods of manufacturing the aluminium metal foam. First technique is known as Open Cell manufacturing while the other is called Closed cell manufacturing. The Open cell manufacturing is a very high end manufacturing technique used for manufacture metal foam for aerospace industries; on the other hand, closed cell manufacturing techniques is used for manufacturing impact absorbing materials.

 

Applications

Aluminium metal foam has vast range of applications. The specific properties of aluminium provides unique characteristics to the aluminium metal foam like it is very light in weight as compared to other metal foam. Aluminium metalfoam is used in many sectors like :

 

i) Architectural Composition

ii) Design Gallary

iii) Orthopaedics

iv) Impact Energy Absorption

v) Automotive Industry