Mechanical and Microstructural Characterization of an AZ91⁻Activated Carbon Syntactic Foam

Nima Movahedi; Mehdi Taherishargh; Irina V Belova; Graeme E Murch; Thomas Fiedler

doi:10.3390/ma12010003

Mechanical and Microstructural Characterization of an AZ91⁻Activated Carbon Syntactic Foam

Materials (Basel). 2018 Dec 20;12(1):3. doi: 10.3390/ma12010003.

Authors

Nima Movahedi¹, Mehdi Taherishargh², Irina V Belova³, Graeme E Murch⁴, Thomas Fiedler⁵

Affiliations

¹ Centre for Mass and Thermal Transport in Engineering Materials, School of Engineering, The University of Newcastle, Callaghan, NSW 2308, Australia. nima.movahedi@uon.edu.au.
² Centre for Mass and Thermal Transport in Engineering Materials, School of Engineering, The University of Newcastle, Callaghan, NSW 2308, Australia. mehdi.taherishargh@newcastle.edu.au.
³ Centre for Mass and Thermal Transport in Engineering Materials, School of Engineering, The University of Newcastle, Callaghan, NSW 2308, Australia. irina.belova@newcastle.edu.au.
⁴ Centre for Mass and Thermal Transport in Engineering Materials, School of Engineering, The University of Newcastle, Callaghan, NSW 2308, Australia. graeme.murch@newcastle.edu.au.
⁵ Centre for Mass and Thermal Transport in Engineering Materials, School of Engineering, The University of Newcastle, Callaghan, NSW 2308, Australia. Thomas.Fiedler@newcastle.edu.au.

Abstract

In this study, activated carbon (AC) particles were combined with AZ91 alloy to manufacture a magnesium syntactic foam. This novel lightweight foam has a very low density, in the range of 1.12⁻1.18 gcm^-3. The results show that no chemical reaction occurred between the AZ91 matrix and the activated carbon particles. The mechanical properties of the foam were evaluated under quasi-static compression loading conditions, and showed a consistent trend for the energy absorption of the fabricated AZ91⁻AC syntactic foams. The deformation mechanism of samples was a brittle fracture mode with the formation of shear bands during the fracture of all samples.

Keywords: casting; compression; deformation; density; foam; magnesium; properties; syntactic.