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2009
Conference Paper
Titel
Applications and design guidelines for metal foams constructions in machine tools
Abstract
Metal foams are used in the most cases to create lighter parts with good stiffness. With today's steel constructions it is also possible to design light weight parts for machine tools. The decisive advantage of metal foams - produced as a steel-aluminium foam-sandwich - is the excellent dynamic behaviour. This article is focussed on applications in mechanical engineering and the building industry. Some applications are shown with interesting measurements. One example is a table for planar drives made from a very thick sandwich. The other examples are slides from a high speed cutting machine and sandwiches for a multi storey car park. The paper focus also on the point, why metal foams meets so good the requirements of the mechanical engineering especially of the machine tool industry. Some guidelines for the design will be given. It was shown that such aluminium foams, especially as a sandwich, fulfil all technical requests in many branches. It is also described how metal foams are being used in serial application in the mechanical engineering.