Design of Functionally Graded Beam of Aluminium Foam for Civil Structural Application

Sandwich foam beams, made of solid skins and aluminium foam core, are usually applied in high-tech engineering field while they are not yet adopted in civil structures. An initial, explorative study on the structural application of metal foam is presented in this paper. The potentials of sandwich foam beams are studied through analytical models and parametric analyses; the sensitivity of the flexural response of the media to the total amount of pores and their spatial distribution are investigated. An analytical tool able to design functionally graded beams of metallic foam is presented and applied with reference some commercial aluminium foams. An experimental campaign is being planned to validate the presented results.