Simulation of Foaming and Deformation for Composite Aluminum Foams

In this study, at the first stage, the rupture criterion of bubbles wall in Aluminum metal foam liquid was investigated by 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 base on ASTM E9 standard. Stress-strain curves of the foams were determined by a data acquisition system with gain 10 samples per second. Then foams plastic deformation behavior simulated based of a new asymptotic function by ABAQUS software. Discretized digital solid-model of the solid bubbles was prepared by using virtual metallographic images which obtained from present code. Then load-displacement curves were plotted for simulation and experimental results. Results show both curves obtained from experimental and simulation have a good agreement with approximately 1.8% error. Therefore present software could be useful tool for predicting of metal foams plastic deformation behavior without experimental try and error.