Ceramic and Metal Foams

Ceramic and Metal Foam Applications

Ceramic and Metal Foam Advantages

  • Resistant to thermal shock
  • High specific stiffness
  • High surface area
  • Low pressure drop
  • Tailorable pore size and foam density
  • Ability to apply solid ceramic or metal facesheets to create actively cooled structures
  • Fabrication from various ceramics and metals

Virtually any material that can be deposited by chemical vapor deposition can be used to infiltrate a foam and coat the ligaments. Once the coating fills ~5% of the original pore space, the mechanical, thermal, and electrical properties of the whole are dominated by the properties of the coating.

Among the materials that can be deposited are pyrolytic carbon or graphite, refractory metals (e.g. niobium, tantalum, tungsten, molybdenum, and rhenium), and ceramic compounds (e.g. the oxides, nitrides, carbides, borides, and silicides of the metals).

Open Cell Silicon

Open-cell silicon carbide foam showing uniform pore structure

Silicon Carbide Coating


Individual foam ligaments showing uniform silicon carbide coating (gray areas) over carbon core (black triangular areas)

Foam Core Sandwich

Foam-core sandwich structure in which fully dense silicon carbide facesheets are integrally bonded to 80-90 vol% porous, open-cell silicon carbide foam (both 5x). Refractory metal foam/facesheet structures are also feasible.

Explore More
Learn More about Refractory Open Cell Foams.

Fabrication of Refractory Open-Cell Foam

Reticulated Vitreous Carbon (RVC) Foam

Ceramic and Metal
Foams

Properties of Foam
Materials

Noise
Reduction

Thermal
Management

Mirrors

Fuel
Injectors