Manufacture of metal foam layers by laser metal deposition

Abstract

This study explores the potential ability of laser metal deposition (LMD) as metal foaming process, considering that its intrinsic high heating/cooling rates can avoid some of the common problems of gas leakage, in-homogeneity and anisotropy that arise when manufacturing metallic foams by conventional powder metallurgy (PM) methods. Highly porous coatings of aluminum and titanium alloys have been obtained by this PM-LMD metal foaming method.