Structure-property relationship in titanium foams

Porous structures have been of interest due to their extraordinary mechanical and functional properties over the past few decades. Titanium and its alloy foams is one of the most popular metallic foams on account of their excellent mechanical properties, chemical stability, and biocompatibility. In this PhD thesis, titanium foams with different pore morphology, pore size and porosity ranging between 140 µm ? 2 mm, 35 ? 75 %, respectively were produced by space holder method. Changes in architectural features such as pore size and cell wall thickness distributions, cell wall porosity, before and after sintering, were investigated by the use of x-ray microtomography. Sintering was found to increase mean cell wall thickness measured due to closure of cell wall pores. Increasing spacer fraction and decreasing spacer size resulted in denser cell walls due to enhancement in compaction and sintering. Effect of foam architecture on mechanical properties, energy absorption capacity and strain-rate sensitivity was investigated systematically. It has been demonstrated that the most significant effect on mechanical properties belongs to cell morphology.