Compressive behavior of micro-metallic closed cellular materials fabricated by spark-plasma sintering

A method to fabricate the metallic closed cellular material has been developed. Powder particles of polymer coated with a nickel-phosphorus alloy layer using electro-less plating were pressed into pellets and sintered at high temperatures by a furnace and spark-plasma sintering system. A metallic closed cellular material containing different materials from that of cell walls was then fabricated. The results of the compressive tests show that this material has the different stress-strain curves among the specimens that have different thickness of the cell walls and the sintering temperatures of the specimens affect the compressive strength of each specimen. Also, it seems that the results of the compressive tests show that this material has high-energy absorption and Young's modulus of this material depends on the thickness of the cell walls and the sintering temperature. These obtained results emphasize that this material can be utilized as energy absorbing material. (C) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.