Effect of Heat Treatment on the Compressive Behavior of Zinc Alloy ZA27 Syntactic Foam

Abstract

Zinc alloy (ZA27) syntactic foams (SF) were manufactured using expanded perlite (EP) particles and counter-gravity infiltration casting. Due to a variation of the metallic matrix content, the density of the produced foam samples varied from 1.78 to 2.03 g·cm−3. As-cast and solution heat-treated samples were tested to investigate the compressive properties of the ZA27 syntactic foam. To this end, quasi-static compression tests were conducted. In addition, microstructural analysis of the as-cast and heat-treated syntactic foams was carried out using scanning electron microscopy. The results indicate that the heat treatment alters the microstructure of the ZA27 alloy matrix from a multiphase dendrite to a spheroidized microstructure with improved ductility. Moreover, the heat treatment considerably enhances the energy absorption and plateau stress ( σ pl ) of the syntactic foam. Optical analysis of the syntactic foams under compression shows that the dominant deformation mechanism of the as-cast foams is brittle fracture. In comparison, the heat-treated samples undergo a more ductile deformation.

Functionally-Graded Metallic Syntactic Foams Produced via Particle Pre-Compaction

“…This is of particular interest for materials showing brittle deformation and shear failure. It has been previously shown that T6 thermal treatment increases the ductility of the matrix alloy and the MSFs [29], which favours layer-by-layer deformation. At higher strains ε > 0.3, the deformation transitions to the non-compacted FG-MSF layers.…”

Fracture Toughness of Hollow Glass Microsphere-Filled Iron Matrix Syntactic Foams

“…Typically, in these materials, the size, or at least the size distributions, of hollow fillers are deliberately set, while their relative position can range from arbitrary to ordered. Among them, metal matrix syntactic foams (MMSFs) are high-density foams produced with a metallic (Al [2][3][4][5], Mg [6][7][8][9], Zn [2,[10][11][12], Ti [13][14][15], or Fe [16][17][18][19][20] based) matrix and various types of porous fillers (hollow spheres [21] or other porous particles [22]) by molten metal infiltration [23,24]. MMSFs can be utilized as high-performance energy absorbers in vehicles [25] and defensive technologies [26], or as lightweight structural elements.…”

Compressive characteristics of bimodal aluminium matrix syntactic foams

“…Since the original aim of the production of MMSFs was to provide low-weight structural materials with high energy absorbing capacity, the matrix materials of MMSFs are often come from the lightweight alloys such as aluminium (most often, [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12]) and magnesium [13][14][15][16]. However, efforts have been invested into the production of different MMSFs with iron- [17][18][19], titanium- [20][21][22] or zinc [23][24][25][26][27][28] alloys. Regarding the filler of MMSFs the first studies have been done on fly-ash cenospheres [29][30][31][32] as hollow mixed oxide, porous and cheap by-product of thermal power plants, with large scatter in the properties of the individual particles.…”