Highly damped machine tools with metal foam

Metal foams will soon make it possible to achieve lighter parts with good stiffness. Given today's steel constructions, one can also design lightweight parts for machine tools. The decisive advantage of metal foams - produced as a steel-aluminium foam sandwich - is their excellent dynamic behaviour. This article focuses on possible applications of metal foam use mechanical engineering. Some applications with interesting measuring results are shown. For example, a very large cross beam of a milling machine for tool and die making was tested. The other examples are taken from a high speed cutting machine. It was shown demonstrated that sandwiches fulfil all the requirements of mechanical engineering.