Simulation of Foaming and Deformation for Composite Aluminum Foams

In this study, the rupture criterion of bubbles wall in Aluminum metal foam liquid was investigated at the first stage, using Lattice Boltzmann. The two phases modeling were accomplished by using a modified Shan-Chen model. This model was run for several bubbles in A356+3wt.%SiC melt system. Then, bubbles morphologies (virtual metallographic) for A356+3wt.%SiC foams were simulated. Results showed that simulation data and the virtual metallographic have a good agreement with the metallographic empirical results after solidification. In the second stage, several cubic A356+3wt.%SiC foams were compressed under uni-axial compression load based on ASTM E9 standard. Stress-strain curves of foams were determined by a data acquisition system gaining 10 samples per second. Foams plastic deformation behavior then was simulated based on a new asymptotic function using ABAQUS software. Discretized digital solid-model of the solid bubbles was prepared with virtual metallographic images which obtained from the present code. The load-displacement curves were then plotted for simulation and experimental results. Results show that both curves which were obtained from experimental and simulation have a good agreement with approximately 1.8% error. Therefore, the present software could be a useful tool for predicting the metal foams plastic deformation behavior without any experimental try and error.

Keywords:

Metal Foam Aluminum A356 , Lattice Boltzmann Method , Shan-Chen model Plastic deformation , mIR asymptotic model