Compressive properties of porous Cu reinforced by inserting copper pillars or tubes

Open-cell metal foams suffer from severe deterioration in mechanical properties due to their enriched three-dimensional interconnected holes. In this paper, reinforcing copper pillar(s) or tube(s) are embedded into the foam matrix to form “composite” structure to enhance the open-cell copper foams. To do this, a simple positioning device is designed for preparation of the green porous copper aligned with directional through hole(s) based on a tapping method. Then the reinforcing pillar(s) or tube(s) are inserted into the hole(s) and sintered together. By this means, the mechanical properties of the copper foams are significantly improved. The energy absorption capacity of the composite foams has also been improved because of a higher and wider yield platform compared with the unreinforced copper foams.