The present work investigates the effect of aluminum and titanium hydride self-foaming precursor particles on foamed aluminum properties. Titanium hydride was milled with aluminum powder at 2 weight percent to create the self-foaming precursor particles. These particles were combined with aluminum powder at 0, 1, 3, 5, and 10 weight percent. The mixed powders were compacted and foamed through an induction heating process to create closed-cell, selectively foamed aluminum. There were two groups of foams created based on their height to width ratio: group (a) with a height to width ratio of 0.4 and group (b) with a height to width ratio of 0.7. The resulting structure, porosity and physical characteristics of the closed-cell foam were examined and discussed. Higher self-foaming particle content led to higher porosities and lower densities. It also led to an increased ratio of pores greater than 1 mm. The lower density foams exhibited more uniform and circular pore structures. In addition, increasing self-foaming particle content decreased the compressive plateau stress and increased the energy absorption efficiency for specific strain values. In all foamed specimens there was grain growth during foaming and grain boundary elongation during compression testing. The observed grain growth and porosity led to significantly reduced microhardness values from those measured from the respective green compacts, but comparable to production aluminum foams that exist today.
