Forming and joining of porous aluminum by robot arm right after foaming

The precursor method is one of the methods used to fabricate porous aluminum. In this method, porous aluminum can be fabricated by heating the precursor for foaming by generated gas from the internal foaming agent. In our previous study, shaping of porous aluminum can be conducted by forming immediately after foaming without collapsing the internal pores. In this study, we attempted to fabricate a large sample by joining two small pieces of porous aluminum immediately after foaming and shaping them at the same time. As a result, it was found that the two samples could be joined without collapsing the pores in the porous aluminum, and a mountain-like shape could be given to the samples. From the four-point bending test, pores were observed at the fracture surfaces, indicating that most of the samples fractured at the base porous aluminum. Therefore, it was shown that strong joining between two porous aluminum can be achieved.