Using X-ray tomoscopy to explore the dynamics of foaming metal

Francisco García-Moreno (), Paul Hans Kamm, Tillmann Robert Neu, Felix Bülk, Rajmund Mokso, Christian Matthias Schlepütz, Marco Stampanoni and John Banhart
Additional contact information
Francisco García-Moreno: Institute of Applied Materials, Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin für Materialien und Energie
Paul Hans Kamm: Institute of Applied Materials, Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin für Materialien und Energie
Tillmann Robert Neu: Institute of Applied Materials, Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin für Materialien und Energie
Felix Bülk: Institute of Applied Materials, Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin für Materialien und Energie
Rajmund Mokso: MAX IV Laboratory, Lund University
Christian Matthias Schlepütz: Swiss Light Source, Paul Scherrer Institute
Marco Stampanoni: Swiss Light Source, Paul Scherrer Institute
John Banhart: Institute of Applied Materials, Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin für Materialien und Energie

Nature Communications, 2019, vol. 10, issue 1, 1-9

Abstract: Abstract The complex flow of liquid metal in evolving metallic foams is still poorly understood due to difficulties in studying hot and opaque systems. We apply X-ray tomoscopy –the continuous acquisition of tomographic (3D) images– to clarify key dynamic phenomena in liquid aluminium foam such as nucleation and growth, bubble rearrangements, liquid retraction, coalescence and the rupture of films. Each phenomenon takes place on a typical timescale which we cover by obtaining 208 full tomograms per second over a period of up to one minute. An additional data processing algorithm provides information on the 1 ms scale. Here we show that bubble coalescence is not only caused by gravity-induced drainage, as experiments under weightlessness show, and by stresses caused by foam growth, but also by local pressure peaks caused by the blowing agent. Moreover, details of foam expansion and phenomena such as rupture cascades and film thinning before rupture are quantified. These findings allow us to propose a way to obtain foams with smaller and more equally sized bubbles.

Date: 2019
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-11521-1 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:10:y:2019:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-019-11521-1

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-11521-1

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().