Enhancing significantly the damping response of Mg using hollow glass microspheres while simultaneously reducing weight

Abstract

Lightweight composite materials possessing higher damping capabilities are of great interests to material designers satisfying ever changing demands in automotive, aerospace and marine sectors. Besides having lowest density in metals regime, magnesium exhibits superior mechanical properties. Specific properties can still be enhanced by reducing the density further with development of magnesium based syntactic foams. Present work deals with processing and experimental characterization of glass microballoon (GMB) reinforced magnesium (Mg) composites. Hollow glass microspheres (5, 15 and 25 wt.%) reinforced magnesium syntactic foams were synthesized in magnesium matrix using the disintegrated melt deposition (DMD) method and their damping properties are investigated. The addition of glass microspheres enhanced the damping and loss factors by 370% and 12.5 times respectively for the highest filler loading as compared to pure magnesium. Further, increase in damping is correlated with microstructural changes arising due to the presence of the hollow glass microspheres. Elaborate discussion is presented on underlying mechanisms and different phases formed during processing.