Proceeding of The 5th Annual Basic Science International Conference

Received: Feb 13th, 2015; Accepted: Mar 23rd, 2015; Published online: April 11th, 2015.

Porosity and Specific Compressive Strength of Aluminum

A6061 Foam Produced by Metal Casting with CaCO3
Powder as Blowing Agent
Yudy Surya Irawan1*, Kelik Bayu Akhyari1, Tjuk Oerbandono1
1

Department of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Brawijaya University, Jalan

Mayjend Haryono 167, Malang, Indonesia 65145
* Corresponding authors: [yudysir@ub.ac.id]
Abstract Due to the needs of light metal for energy saver, it is necessary to develop materials
with higher specific compressive strength such as aluminum foam. There are several methods to
make aluminum foam for instance metal casting and powder metallurgy. However, metal casting
method has limitation due to its difficulty to stabilize foaming process. Therefore, it is important to
develop aluminum foam using metal casting method and foaming agent that economically used
such as Calcium Carbonate (CaCO3). Previous studies [1][2] reported about compressive strength
of aluminum foam, but effect of CaCO3 powder and alumina (Al2O3) as foaming stabilizer on the
foam strength was not studied yet. In this study, aluminum foam was made by metal casting
method. Materials were aluminum alloy A6061, CaCO3 as blowing agent and Al2O3 powder as
foam stabilizer. Variations of CaCO3 powder were 0, 1, 3, and 5% of weight. Meanwhile, weight
ratio of alumina powder and CaCO3 powder is 1:2. Compressive strength test was conducted using
a universal testing machine. It is found that that the higher content of CaCO 3 powder can increase
the mean porosity of A6061 foam. However, the mean porosity tends slightly decrease in
specimens with 3% of weight and above, due to the increase of alumina powder as foam stabilizer.
Meanwhile, there is the decrease of compressive strength of A6061 foam but if the specific
compressive strength of the foam was calculated, it gives higher specific compressive strength
with the increase of CaCO3 powder content in A6061 foam.

1. INTRODUCTION
Light structure becomes needs of humanity to be one of solutions to world problem such as energy crisis. Light
structure in automobile will need less energy to move the car, so it can reduce oil fuel consumption. There are many
ways to construct light structure such us polymer composite materials, metal composite materials and new low-density
alloys metal. Other candidate is foam metal that can provide better integrity, stronger that can be presented with its
specific strength. Aluminum foam is one type of foam metals that has good corrosion resistant, and have high porosity
up to 70% and also relative density up to 0.03 gram/cm3 [1].
Aluminum foam process is still expensive, so the availability in the market is low. Therefore, it is a challenge to
develop and improve the manufacturing process of aluminum foam using metal casting process. Metal casting process
is one of the oldest manufacturing technologies that can produce products cheaper even in the high complexity
geometry of product [2]. However, there are some problems to produce aluminum foam using this method. An
alternative method to produce aluminum foam cheaper and easier is using a blowing agent such as calcium carbonate
(CaCO3) which is easily founded in the market with economically price. Blowing agent or foaming agent is a chemical
matter that can produce bubbles in foaming process to make porous materials such as aluminum foam. Aboaria et.al
studied about compressive strength of aluminum foam using CaCO3 powder as blowing agent [3]. Kevorkijan also
studied about aluminum foam using CaCO3 particulate as alternative blowing agent to produce low cost aluminum
foam [4], but the effect of CaCO3 powder and alumina (Al2O3) as foaming stabilizer [5][6] on the specific compressive
strength of aluminum A6061 foam was not studied yet. Therefore, it is essential to study about porosity and specific
compressive strength of aluminum A6061 foam using metal casting method with various CaCO 3 powder content as
blowing agent. This paper discussed the result of the study based on macro photographs, compressive test, and SEMEDAX analysis in composition analysis.

2. METHODS
Materials used in this study are: (i) commercial aluminum alloys A6061 as raw material of aluminum foam, (ii) calcium
carbonate (CaCO3) with weight percentage of 0, 1, 3,and 5; (iii) alumina (Al2O3) powder as foam stabilizer with weight

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ratio to calcium carbonate is 1:2. Mixing of calcium carbonate powder and alumina powder was using a twin cell
chucked on a lathe machine with revolution speed of 240 rpm in 30 minutes.
Stir casting method was applied to produce specimens of aluminum A6061 foam. Pouring temperature of aluminum
A6061 during adding of blowing agent was 750C. The first mixture process was done manually for 2 minutes. The
second mixture process was conducted using stir casting method with revolution speed of 550 rpm for 2 minutes. Then,
foaming process began and aluminum A6061 foam specimens were cooled in the room temperature.
Specimens of compressive strength test were prepared by cutting aluminum A6061 foam into the cube form with
dimensions of 30 mm 30 mm 30 mm. Then, the specimens were polished with water resistant emery paper grade
#800, #1000, and #1200 before compressive strength test. Specimens were applied with compressive force using a
universal testing machine with cross head speed of 2 mm/minute until the specimens were compressed up to 5 mm
height from initial height of 30 mm.
Archimedes principle [7] was used to determine the porosity of aluminum A6061 foam and apparent density of the
foam. SEM-EDAX analyzer was used to determine composition of aluminum A6061 foam for porosity analysis.
Compressive strength was obtained by dividing maximum compressive force during the test with initial area of
specimen. Specific compressive strength was calculated by dividing compressive strength of specimen with its
apparent density that obtained by Archimedes principle.

3. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Figure 1 shows photographs of aluminum A6061 foam with calcium carbonate 1% and 3% of weight. It is found that
foaming process was done well and some bigger pores exist on the specimen with calcium carbonate 1% of weight as
shown in Fig.1(a). In the specimen with higher content of calcium carbonate, the big pore sizes become smaller
compared to that of specimen with less content of calcium carbonate. However, some areas contain no pore. It seems
that porosity of specimen is lower in the higher content of CaCO 3. In order to confirmed that, porosity test was done and
the result shown in Figure 2(a).
Figure 2(a) illustrates the relationship between CaCO3 content and porosity. It is found that porosity of the foam is
around 10 times higher than that of bulk aluminum A6061. However, the increase of CaCO3 content slightly reduced
the porosity of the foam. It occurred because with the increase of CaCO 3 content, the content of alumina (Al2O3) also
increase with ratio of Alumina and CaCO3 is 1:2. Since density of Al2O3 is higher that aluminum, density of the foam
with higher content of CaCO3 also increase, which means porosity of the foam with higher content of CaCO 3 decreases.
Meanwhile, effect of adding CaCO3 on compressive strength of the foam can be seen in Fig.2(b). It can be seen that by
adding CaCO3 1% of weight reduced the compressive strength which is almost

(a)

(b)

Figure 1 (a) Aluminum A6061 foam with CaCO 3 1% of weight (b) Aluminum A6061 foam with CaCO3 3% of
weight.

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(a)

(b)

Figure 2 (a) Relationship of CaCO3 powder content and mean porosity of Aluminum A6061 Foam, (b)
relationship of CaCO3 powder content and mean compressive strength of Aluminum A6061 Foam.
one fifth of bulk aluminum A6061 compressive strength. It is due to the increase of porosity in the foam. However, in
the case of the foam specimens with higher content of CaCO3, the compressive strength increases. It occurred because
the content of Al2O3 that has higher density and hardness is higher than that of specimens with lower content of CaCO3
and affected the compressive strength of the foam.
In the application of materials in light structures, one of important parameters is specific strength of materials. The
higher specific strength means material with less density has higher strength. In the case of aluminum A6061 foam, in
order to find the specific compressive strength of the foam, the compressive strength of each type of specimens was
divided by its apparent density. As the result, Fig.3 shows effect of CaCO 3 content in the foam on the specific
compressive strength of the foam. It is found that by adding CaCO3 powder up to 5% of weight can increase specific
compressive strength of aluminum A6061 around 36%. As shown in Fig.2(a), the higher content of CaCO3 increases
porosity of the foam, but the porosity of the foam slightly decreases in the specimen with CaCO3 content of 3% of
weight above. It means that density of the specimen become higher, but

Figure 3 Relationship of CaCO3 powder content and mean specific compressive strength of Aluminum A6061
Foam.
it is still lower than that of bulk aluminum A6061. This condition makes specific compressive strength of aluminum
A6061 foam increased.
According to the results in this study, it was confirmed that CaCO 3 powder as blowing agent and Al2O3 as foaming
stabilizer can produce aluminum A6061 foam. The highest specific compressive strength was achieved in the specimen
with CaCO3 5% of weight.

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4. CONCLUSIONS
From this study about porosity and specific compressive strength of aluminum A6061 foam with varied CaCO 3 powder
as blowing agent, it can be concluded that:
1. The higher percentage of weight of CaCO3 powder in aluminum A6061 foam increases porosity in the specimen
with CaCO3 1% of weight and slightly decreases porosity in the specimen with percentage of CaCO 3 weight above
3% due to the increase of Al2O3 as foam stabilizer agent.
2. The higher content of CaCO3 powder in aluminum foam has lower compressive strength compared to that of bulk
aluminum A6061, but increases specific compressive strength of aluminum A6061 foam.
3. The adding of Al2O3 powder as foam stabilizer agent can increase the density of aluminum A6061 foam and affects
the specific compressive strength.

5. REFERENCES
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.

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