1. Typology of metal foams

1.1 Metal foams and cellular materials

Cellular materials are characterized by the mesoscopic interweaving (from 10 µm to 10 mm) of a solid phase and a gaseous phase. They are numerous, starting with those produced by nature: wood, bone, sponge... They possess unique properties that result mainly from the combination of their cellular form and the intrinsic characteristics of their solid phase.

Cellular metals constitute the subgroup of cellular materials whose solid phase is a metal. Among them, metal foams constitute a special class, the exact definition of which is difficult to establish. Strictly speaking, a foam is a metastable medium consisting of a gaseous phase dispersed in the form of cells within a continuous liquid phase. By extension, the term metal...