At the same time, aluminum foam has a number of excellent properties, and its application prospects are very bright. It will make great achievements in automobiles, ships, aviation, aerospace, weapons, electronics, environmental protection, transportation, and building materials. Especially in aerospace engineering, aluminum foam with many excellent properties is the ideal structural material that aerospace engineering has been pursuing. For example, although the carrying capacity of the current launch vehicle has been greatly improved compared to the past, the actual carrying capacity is still very limited. Therefore, reducing the weight of the spacecraft is one of the important topics in aerospace product design. Even if the rocket carrying capacity is sufficient, if the structural weight can be reduced and the payload can be increased, the launch cost can be greatly reduced. According to analysis, every kilogram of payload that is put into orbit currently costs tens of thousands of dollars. If aluminum foam is used in spacecraft, the economic benefits will be obvious
Structural features
Aluminum foam is composed of a small amount of aluminum or aluminum alloy metal skeleton and a large number of pores. The structural characteristics of the material are roughly as follows:
( 1 ) Larger apertured = 03 mm to 5 s mm; (2) Higher porosityp two 63% a 90%; (3) The hole structure is divided into two types: closed hole and through hole. (4) The skeleton metal can be aluminum or aluminum alloy
2 Performance characteristics
(1) The density is small. (2) It has high specific strength and specific stiffness, and its mechanical properties are stable and isotropic. (3) It has high damping and vibration reduction and impact energy absorption capacity. ( 4 ) Excellent acoustic performance (5) Excellent electromagnetic shielding performance (6) Good heat insulation and heat dissipation performanceAnti-vibration seatDuring the launch and recovery of the manned spacecraft, the astronauts are fixed on the cockpit seats.
Due to the strong shock and vibration of the two processes, it is very unfavorable to the health of the astronauts. The current vibration reduction measures are that the seat bracket is equipped with a buffer. The second is that there are anti-vibration pads on the seat, among which the bracket buffer only has obvious effect on large shocks, and the effect of anti-vibration pads is relatively limited, and the comprehensive vibration reduction effect is not good. replaced with aluminum foam,Utilizing the material's ultra-light damping and impact energy-absorbing properties, supplemented by vibration-damping pads, not only reduces the weight of the seat, but also effectively optimizes the mechanical environment in which the astronauts are located, killing two birds with one stone.
Foamed aluminum and aluminum alloys are used as non-load-bearing parts or sub-load-bearing parts in relatively many cases, mainly using some of its excellent properties to meet some special requirements, such as heat dissipation \ heat insulation (closed-cell foam) \ sound insulation \ Light weight, etc., aerospace engineering applications are under the condition that the material meets other performance requirements such as strength, and it is hoped that the material is as light as possible, and the excellent comprehensive performance of foamed aluminum is just suitable for this condition. Force or secondary load-bearing parts, such as heat sinks, thermal insulation, partitions, hatches, etc., are expected to replace existing materials with this material.
