Fabrication and study of pipe-gridded porous metal

A novel approach to manufacture pipe-gridded porous metal with a regular structure is presented, which is based on a combination of electric hot machining, machining, electrodeposition, and diffusion welding techniques. The skeleton is constructed step by step as a grid of metallic pipes and welded firmly, so that the regular spacing and porosity of the structure can be controlled as designed. Finite element method (FEM) analysis is performed on the structure, from which a stress–strain curve is obtained. Then, quasi-static compression experiments are carried out on the actual samples, and experimental stress–strain curves are obtained, from which the mean values, mean variances, and discrete coefficients of the peaks can be calculated. The experimental results and the FEM analysis results agree well, confirming that FEM-based analysis is a convenient technique for predicting the compressive properties of such structures. Such pipe-gridded metal has an obvious advantage over line-gridded metal in terms of compressive strength per unit density.