On the Effect of Temperature on the Tensile Behaviour of Open-cell Aluminium Alloy Foams

Aluminium foams are promising materials for a number of applications that require them to service at elevated temperatures. Incomplete characterization of the response of foams during mechanical loading, particularly at high temperatures, has been a factor limiting their introduction in industrial applications. In this work, quasi-static uniaxial tensile testing is applied on open-cell 6101-T6 aluminium alloy foam at temperatures ranging from 25 degrees C to 400 degrees C. Tensile strength exhibits significant linear decrease with temperature and slight increase with strain rate. Elongation is found to increase exponentially with the increase in temperature. Macroscopic ductile necking prior to rupture was observed in some samples tested at 400 degrees C.