Microarchitecture and compressive deformation behaviour of Al-alloy (LM13)–cenosphere hybrid Al-foam prepared using CaCO3 as foaming agent

LM13 Al-alloy–cenosphere aluminium hybrid foam was made by foaming LM13 Al–cenosphere mixture through stir casting technique using CaCO3 as foaming agent. In the melt mixture 30 vol% of cenosphere was used and the foaming temperature was varied (660 °C and 690 °C). It was interestingly noted that two different kinds of foam architecture at two different temperatures were obtained: partially open and elongated pores with much lower density at 660 °C and closed spherical cells with relatively higher density at 690 °C. The compressive deformation behaviour of these foams were examined in order to assess its plateau stress, densification strain and energy absorption and also to understand its deformation mechanism.