Bending response of sandwich panels with steel skins and aluminium foam core

Abstract

Nominated for Eurosteel 2021 Best Paper Award The introduction to the market of metal foams represents a significant opportunity to increase the use of metal in the construction market. In fact, the development of new products made of metal foams and steel could improve the performance of conventional buildings in terms of stiffness and resistance. The first structural applications of these materials have already shown the potential of composites made of foam and steel, and demonstrated the feasibility of producing mono‐dimensional and bi‐dimensional elements with a high resistance‐to‐weight ratio. Reducing the structural weight can be a significant advantage in many cases, such as infrastructures or buildings in seismic zones. Within this framework, the work presented in this paper aims to assess the response of composite sandwich panels made of steel and aluminium foam using a set of tests that will serve as the basis for developing a new system of dry‐assembled composite floors. The tests were carried out at the Strength laboratory (Structural Engineering Test Hall) at the University of Salerno, Italy and were designed to verify the mechanical properties of metal foam panels and double‐skin glued sandwich panels. The tests have shed light on the basic mechanical properties of both foams and sandwich panels.

Experimental response of full‐scale steel‐aluminium foam‐steel sandwich panels in bending

“…This large ductility was developed thanks to the advantage deriving from the metallurgical bond between the skins and the metal foam core. Indeed, in a previous experimental campaign devoted to assessing the performance of sandwich panels with glued elements the observed ductility supply was very limited and the failure mode was always triggered by debonding, which usually anticipated the full plastic development of the failure mechanism [6].…”

“…From this background, tests on steel-aluminium foamsteel (SAS) sandwich panels were recently conducted in a previous study to investigate the potentialities of applying high-performance metal foams in sandwich panels [6]. A bi-component epoxy-resin was used to glue the steel sheets and aluminium foam.…”

Prototype Tests on Screwed Steel–Aluminium Foam–Steel Sandwich Panels

“…Some applications of these technologies already exist and focus mainly on protective measures for defiance, railway engineering, ship construction, wind, and aeronautical engineering [13,14]. Nevertheless, currently, the use of metal foams in civil engineering is still limited or at an initial phase [15][16][17][18][19][20][21].…”

Characteristics of Pore Morphology in Aluminum Alloy Foams Fabricated by Semi-Solid Route among Multiple Experimental Runs

“…The aluminum alloy foam shows a variety of unique properties, such as lightweight, shock-absorbing ability, soundabsorbing ability, and thermal isolating ability, which are suitable for the aforementioned requirements, owing to its closed cell structure inside the foam [1,2]. Because of these properties, aluminum alloy foams have already been put to practical use and have been studied in various fields, such as architectural materials, crash-absorbing materials in automobiles, heat insulators, and acoustic materials [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11]. It is well known that these properties are easily lowered due to the non-uniformity of the pore structure in the foam.…”