High cycle fatigue properties of aluminium foams

Fatigue lifetime measurements have been performed on foamed Al-Mg-Si wrought alloys and Al-Si cast alloys in the high cycle range using an ultrasonic resonance testing method. The porous structure of the material is described by quantitative image analysis of optical micrographs and non destructively by X-ray computer tomography. The static mechanical properties as determined by tensile, compression and bending tests in earlier studies are used for material characterisation in this paper. The evaluation of the stress strain curves is specified for porous structures to obtain the stiffness and the plateau strength. The influence of the surface skin on the mechanical properties as well as on oscillation behaviour during lifetime measurements was studied.