Investigation on fatigue property of three-dimensional reticulated porous metal foams

As widely used new engineering materials, porous metal foams are often subject to fatigue. In the present paper, the fatigue property of three-dimensional (3D) reticulated porous metal foams has been studied in a new way. The analytical model of fatigue has been put forward based on the simplified structure of these reticulated porous materials under cyclic loads, and a direct relationship between the index weighing the fatigue property and the porosity has been presented for porous materials. The relationship indicates that the fatigue property of porous bodies under controlled nominal stress amplitudes gets worse with increasing porosity, and under controlled nominal strain amplitudes gets better with increasing porosity and decreasing pore diameter. The cyclic compression–compression test for fatigue under controlled nominal stress amplitudes and the cyclic bending test for fatigue under controlled nominal strain amplitudes were performed on the nickel foam produced by electrodeposition, a typical 3D reticulated material, and the abovementioned relationship was experimentally proved to be practical with the response of the electrical resistivity to fatigue damage. The corresponding data of aluminium foam also show similar results in the stress fatigue property.