On the Finite Element Simulation of Secondary Operations on Metallic Foams

Metallic foams have been recently introduced also as industrial materials due to their well known advantages. In fact, their low mass in conjunction with the good thermal and mechanical properties push toward an extensive diffusion in manufacturing industry. In the study here addressed, a very accurate investigation concerning the latter two aspects has been carried out. In fact, a secondary manufacturing process, i.e. the foam bending, has been taken into account. Anyway, all the knowledge derived for sheet metal bending is not directly applicable to the foams. A finite element code has been utilized for modeling the foam behavior during the bending processes and an accurate material rheology description was utilized based on a porous material model which includes the measured local density. The effectiveness of the utilized model has been verified through the comparison with a set of experimental data