Abstract
Closed cell aluminum foam is a material combining several excellent properties. Besides a good mass-stiffness-proportion, aluminum foam has excellent shock absorption properties. Resulting from this fact, new applications in all stiffness- and shock-relevant fields are arising, for instance in the automotive engineering sector. This behavior is very interesting for crash hazard applications in the field of automotive engineering.
Due to its low specific weight and the good dynamic properties metal foam - in mechanical engineering - is very suitable for the application in fast moved assemblies. Its current applications in the field of mechanical engineering - either as prototype or as small series component - are a result of it.
An outstanding example for mould and die production may be the universal slide of the milling machine Mikron HPM 1850 U being manufactured by means of metal foam sandwiches. With this application, aluminium foam in a series machine tool was used worldwide for the very first time. The machine was designed during a cooperation between the companies Mikron AG in Nidau (Switzerland), the Niles Simmons Industrieanlagen and the Fraunhofer-institute for machine tools and forming technology in Chemnitz.