Foaming aluminum

Hello C_Rummel3

That product looks quite impressive.

There are a few obvious potential snags:

• Tendency to accelerated corrosion, once the cell wall is breached.
• Difficulty of forming and cutting.
• Difficulty of welding or joining such material.
• Expansion/contraction fatigue would be greater than plain sheet.
  

There are applications such panels could be ideal for, especially as the product is made continually, there is no real practical limit to length, except delivery problems of the super-length sheets..

We shall have to wait, and see.

Kind Regards....

They would make great SIPs. (Structural insulated panels) change the insulated to engineered.

Fill between to flat sheets and have most the strength and least weight.

Even fill a hydro formed car frame to make it even stronger with little weight gain

2 bits from

Brad

UV said it all . It is coming the big way--in cold regions--and in the tropical sun.

I really found this stuff fascinating. The program (History Channel) spoke to primarily, the blast protection shock absorbing properties for auto and commercial construction. I am interested to hear more of the insulating values.

They compared the manufacture of the foam to when you make a glass of choc milk using powdered cocoa. I thought that was interesting.

They also stated that depending on the void size (there is a dense and less dense variety) that a 4'X8' sheet would weigh about 30lbs., as compared to a 300lb sheet of solid.

Pretty "cool" stuff.

cr3

great post ! thanks

I would guess they incorporate micropheres / bubbles made from glass since they would not melt in the molting Aluminum. We use microbubbles (flexible wall see: expancell.com) and microspheres ( rigid phenolic and glass ) in plastics and urethane creating "syntactic" materials.

light weight materials and process development are hot spots in engineering now

reagards

cbs

I do not think this material is likely to find mucthautomotive application because of the difficulty in manufacturing complex shapes. Joining aluminum skinned, aluminum foam panels is the costly part. Sheet steel is the easiest to work with, then sheet aluminum. Forged solid aluminum finds applications in some suspension parts, cast aluminum in engine and gearbox cases. Even some aluminum 'frames', but only in VERY high end cars due to fabrication cost issues.

Large flat surfaces are a totally different market area. Building panels may be cost effective over traditional materials and methods. However, do not forget aluminum is a VERY energy intensive material.

The program showed some pretty complex shapes; and evaluation is under way, so I think it will be used should testing be approved.