Porous metals show not only extremely low density, but also excellent physical, mechanical and acoustic properties. In this study, Hastelloy powders prepared by gas atomization are used to manufacture 3D geometries of Hastelloy porous metal with above 90% porosity using electrostatic powder coating process. In order to control pore size and porosity, foam is sintered at 1200~1300°C and different powder coating amount. The pore properties are evaluated using SEM and Archimedes method. As powder coating amount and sintering temperature increased, porosity is decreased from 96.4 to 94.4%. And foam density is increased from 0.323 to 0.497 g/cm3 and pore size is decreased from 98 to 560 μm. When the sintering temperature is increased, foam thickness and strut thickness are decreased from 9.85 to 8.13mm and from 366 to 292 μm.
Usually porous metals are known as relatively excellent characteristic such as large surface area, light, lower heat capacity, high toughness and permeability for exhaust gas filter, hydrogen reformer catalyst support. The Ni alloys have high corrosion resistance, heat resistance and chemical stability for high temperature applications. In this study, the Ni-based porous metals have been developed with Hastelloy powder by gas atomization and water atomization in order to find the effects of powder shape on porous metal. Each Hastelloy powder is pressed on disk shape of 2 mm thickness with 12 tons using uniaxial press machine. The specimens are sintered at various temperatures in high vacuum condition. The pore properties were evaluated using Porometer and microstructures were observed with SEM.
An open-cell Ni-Mo-Cr foam was newly manufactured using electrostatic powder spraying process and its room-temperature compressive properties were investigated in this study. For manufacturing Ni-Mo-Cr foam, Ni-Mo-Cr powders were sprayed on the polyurethane pre-form by electrostatic powder spraying process. And then, Ni-Mo-Cr powder sprayed pre-forms were sintered at 1200℃, 1250℃, and 1300℃, respectively. The relative densities of Ni-Mo-Cr foams were measured at 4 ~ 5%. Room temperature compressive curves of ESP Ni-Mo-Cr foams represented the typical compressive 3-stages (elastic, plateau, densification) of open-cell metallic foam. As a result of observation of deformed specimen, the fracture mode found to be changed from brittle to ductile as sintering temperature increased. Based on these findings, correlations between structural characteristics, microstructure, and compressive deformation behavior were also discussed.