Metal Foams: A Design Guide

216 Metal Foams: A Design Guide
high as 500 £/kg, all three of the foams offer better value V than any of the
competing materials. Alporas, using present data, is the best choice, meaning
that it has the best combination of performance and cost.
Multifunctionality
Metal foams appear to be most attractive when used in a multifunctional role.
Multifunctionality exploits combinations of the potential applications listed in
Table 1.2. The most promising of these are
ž Reduced mass
ž Energy absorption/blast mitigation
ž Acoustic damping
ž Thermal stand-off (firewalls)
ž Low-cost assembly of large structures (exploiting low weight)
ž Strain isolation (as a buffer between a stiff structure and a fluctuating
temperature field, for instance).
The method described above allows optimization of material choice for any
combination of these.
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