Correlation between foam structure and mechanical performance of aluminium foam sandwich panels

Aluminium foam sandwich panels containing aluminium alloy sheets ('AFS') have been made available now in sizes up to a few square metres but an unresolved problem in production is how to cope with non-uniformities of the foam and the general lack of mechanical property data of AFS. We investigate large industrial AFS panels and test X-ray radiography as a method to identify weak points in the foam core. For samples in which defects are identified, correlation with failure in tensile and bending tests is investigated. The properties of a large number of samples tested in compression, tension and bending are determined and presented in AFS property tables. We find that X-ray radiography has the potential to identify flawed and potentially weak AFS panels and can be used to test 100% of an industrial production output. The mechanical data measured for in total 120 samples provides a more reliable data base compared to the hitherto published sparse information.