In recent times, aluminum matrix syntactic foams (AMSFs) have become considerably attractive for many industries such as automotive, aviation, aerospace and composite sector due to their features of low density, good compression strength, perfect energy absorption capacity and good ductility. Since the AMSF includes filler materials providing high porosity, it can be also named as composite foam and can be placed between traditional metal foams and particle reinforced composites. Glass and ceramic hollow spheres, fly ash cenospheres and ceramic porous materials are usually used in the AMSFs, but, lately, different types of fillers being cheaper and stronger have also being investigated. Although many scientific efforts have been made for the last decade to understand mechanical and physical properties of these advanced materials, studies have mainly been performed on relatively small size samples and remained in laboratory. Therefore, there is still room for improvement in terms of fabrication techniques. In this paper, our aims are to scrutinize newest studies about ASMFs, to create new viewpoints and to introduce an alternative bright perspective for probable real applications.

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Metal matrix syntactic foams (MMSFs) are advanced engineering materials, and their properties like low density, high compression strength, good ductility, and excellent energy absorption capability make them considerably attractive for many industrial applications nowadays. In this research paper, a new production method named sandwich infiltration casting was used to manufacture metal syntactic foams, including Al 7075 matrix and expanded glass (EG) fillers with 2-4 mm diameter. As a result of the porous structure of EG particles, density values of the fabricated aluminum matrix syntactic foams (AMSFs) changed between 1.39 and 1.47 g cm −3 . Micro observations showed that there was perfect harmony between the matrix and EG particles as a consequence of effective process optimization and adequate wettability of the EG spheres. In addition, T6 heat treatment was applied to specific samples to analyze the possible effect of aging on the mechanical properties. The results indicated that expanded glass had great potential for syntactic foam applications compared to the other filler types utilized in previous efforts. Moreover, it was apparent that there was a favorable relationship between the heat treatment and compressive properties (compression strength, plateau strength, and energy absorption ability) of the fabricated foams.

Over the past years, the number of scientific efforts on aluminum matrix syntactic foams (AMSFs) has increased in a noteworthy manner, and different investigation teams have tried to figure out the physical, microstructural, and mechanical properties of AMSFs. In this paper, different from the previous valuable efforts, an industrial-focused cold chamber die casting machine was utilized during the fabrication instead of commonly used lab-scale techniques. Also, the effects of the reinforcement diameter on the compressive features were analyzed for pumice and expanded glass-added hybrid AMSFs. To ascertain the mechanical properties, quasi-static compression tests were conducted and stress–strain curves were obtained. During the compression tests, the deformation styles of the hybrid foams were followed to comprehend their damage mechanisms. Moreover, half of the samples were subjected to artificial aging treatment and the results were checked up with as-cast samples. According to experimental outcomes, it was obvious that the artificial aging treatment caused superior mechanical properties and triggered brittle-style deformation.