한국주조공학회

There are many methods to produce metal foams, which can be classified into three groups according to the state of the starting metal i.e. liquid or powder or solid. Three types of defects such as cell closing, cell deformation or breakdown and cell misrun are thought to be occurred when we make the open cell aluminum foams by precision casting. Filling ability of the mold slurry between preform is related with cell closing, mold collapsibility is related with cell deformation or breakdown, mold temperature and pouring pressure are related with cell misrun. These factors can be evaluated by measuring slurry fluidity, burnout strength and permeability of the mold. Properties of the plaster mold were evaluated to find optimum mold conditions for high quality open cell aluminum foam in this study. Permeability was almost zero independent of burnout conditions, however, crack initiation was found on the surface of all specimens one or two minutes after taking out from the furnace. Crack has grown and disappeared with time. This crack may facilitate the mold filling when molten metal is poured, because of the improved mold permeability. It was considered that crack initiation and disappearance was closely related with temperature difference between the surface and inner part. Knocking-out the mold is a difficult problem due to the small cell size, because continuous mesh structure of the metal foam is not strong. It is not easy to remove molding material after pouring. We can expect that water quenching can facilitate the knocking-out the mold after solidification without damaging cell structures. Collapsed particles after water quenching became bigger with the increase in time.

Open cell aluminum foam, plaster mold, slurry fluidity, burmoat strength, permeability