Investigation on relationship between porosity and spacer content of titanium foams

Titanium foam has been obtained more and more attention due to its combination with porous structure and titanium. The space holder technique was widely used to fabricate this kind of material because of its low cost, easy operation and freely controllable pore structure and properties. However, how to obtain the desired porosities has been a big challenge for this technique, because they are always not equal to the expected ones. Hence, the relationship between porosity (P) and spacer content (S-c) was studied based on theory and practice in this paper. The results show that the relationship between porosity and spacer content was linear, that is P = aS(c) + b. It indicates that the volumetric change rate of pores (V-R) is a constant and its value altered in different preparing conditions. Through the research of this paper, the porosity and mechanical properties of a foam material can be predicted by spacer content. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.