Hollow Glass Microspheres Filled Aluminum Syntactic Foam Made Through Stir-Casting Technique

Abstract

Hollow Glass Microspheres (HGM) in the range of 10–20 vol. % were used as space holders for making syntactic aluminum foam having density 2.28–2.49 gm/cc using stir-casting technique. Aluminium alloys have already established their exceptional ability to sketch out the material for required properties. Aluminium alloy and its composites are one of the widely used materials for aeronautics and marine applications where high strength is expected from a low density material. So, an effort is made to enhance this lightness of aluminium alloy LM13 without affecting its strength by reinforcing it with Hollow Glass Microspheres (HGM). This synthesized syntactic foam, was characterized in terms of density and compressive deformation behaviour. It was noted that the syntactic foam behaves like a high strength aluminium foam under compressive deformation exhibiting flat plateau region in the stress–strain curves. The plateau stress of syntactic foam decreases with Hollow Glass Microspheres volume fraction vis-à-vis porosity.