Sintered hollow spheres: Random stacking behaviour under uniaxial tensile loading

The behaviour of stainless steel hollow sphere foams under uniaxial tensile loading is characterized both at the macroscopic scale and at the scale of the individual cell. Three foams made by stacking and sintering of stainless steel hollow spheres were investigated. The cell radius size was kept constant, as was the neck size between spheres, while the density was varied by changes to the shell thickness. Two failure modes were observed under tensile loading: neck failure and shell-tearing.