Compressive properties of Al-A206/SiC and Mg-AZ91/SiC syntactic foams

Metal matrix syntactic foams are promising materials with high energy absorption capability. To study the effects of matrix strength on the quasistatic compressive properties of syntactic foams using SiC hollow particles as reinforcement, matrices of Al-A206 and Mg-AZ91 were used. Because Al-A206 is a heat-treatable alloy, matrix strength can be varied by heat treatment conditions, and foams in as-cast, T4, and T7 conditions were tested in this study. It is shown that the peak strength, plateau strength, and toughness of the foams increase with increasing yield strength of the matrix and that these foams show better performance than other foams on a specific property basis. High strain rate testing of the Mg-AZ91/SiC syntactic foams showed that there was little strain rate dependence of the peak stress under strain rates ranging from 10^-3/s to 726/s.