Abstract
Titanium foams having higher porosity were fabricated by a powder metallurgical process using the slurry. Titanium powder was dipped to the solution of 7.5 mass% polyvinyl alcohol, and stirred to make the slurry. The slurry was lightly compacted and blown up under the diminished pressure. The foamed compacts were debound in vacuum at 723 K and sintered at 1373 K in vacuum. It was shown that the porosities and the pore sizes of the sintered titanium foams increased with decreasing the atmospheric pressure and the maximum porosity of 80% was obtained at the pressure of 80hPa. The plateau regions on the stress-strain curves were clearly observed for the titanium foams in compression test. The titanium foams having porosity of greater than 75% showed the similar properties with other metal foams. Because of their unique characteristics, these materials would be applicable to shock absorbers, filters and biomaterials.
