Materials Science Forum, Vol.480, 133-138, 2005
An experimental study on the inhomogeneities of aluminum foams measuring the thermal conductivity by using the transient plane source method
A collection of AlSi7 closed cell foams were fabricated following the powder metallurgical route [1,2], reaching densities between 540 Kg/m(3) and 1350 Kg/m3. Thermal conductivity of the samples was determined using the Transient Plane Source technique (TPS) [3,4], and influence of density was estimated. Several models were tested, and the correlation between experimental data and theoretical results was evaluated. Finally, measurements in different directions were performed, revealing the use of the TPS technique as a non-destructive tool to investigate the existence of in-homogeneities derived from the foaming process.