Open celled material structural properties measurement: From morphology to transport properties

Metallic foams are highly porous materials which present complex structure of three-dimensional open cells. The effective transport properties determination is essential for these widely used new materials. The aim of this work is to develop morphology analysis tools to study the impact of foams structure on physical transport properties. The reconstruction of the solid-pore interface allows the visualization of the 3D data and determination of specific surface and porosity. We present an original method to measure the geometrical tortuosity of a porous media for the two phases. A centerline extraction method allows us to model the solid matrix as a network of linear connected segments. The thermal conductivity of metallic foams is determined by solving energy equation over the solid phase skeleton. Results obtained on a set of nickel foams covering a wide range of pore size are discussed.