Metallurgical Abstracts on Light Metals and Alloys vol.54

Continuous foaming of multiple aluminum foam precursors by combining conveyor and optical heating

Yoshihiko Hangai*, Masataka Ohashi*, Ryohei Nagahiro*, Kenji Amagai*, Takao Utsunomiya** and Nobuhiro Yoshikawa***

*Graduate of Science and Technology, Gunma University
**Department of Mechanical Engineering, Shibaura Institute of Technology
***Institute of Industrial Science, The University of Tokyo

[Published in Materials Transactions, Vol. 61 (2020), pp. 1703–1706]

https://doi.org/10.2320/matertrans.MT-M2020137
E-mail: hanhan[at]gunma-u.ac.jp
Key Words：optical heating, conveyor, precursor, foaming, cellular materials

Precursor foaming is one of the production processes for manufacturing aluminum foam. In this study, the continuous foaming of multiple precursors by combining a conveyor and optical heating with halogen lamps was conducted. First, in a preliminary test, the current of the halogen lamps was adjusted to enable the foaming of a precursor as it moves on the conveyor. Then, multiple precursors were continuously foamed at the adjusted current of the halogen lamps. It was shown that the multiple precursors exhibited similar temperature histories and were sufficiently foamed using the conveyor.

(a) Foaming behavior of three precursors. The precursors were moved from left to right. The right side of each figure shows the enlarged images of the precursor. (b) T – t relationships corresponding to (a).