Aluminium based metallic films

The present paper deals with a novel experimental technique to study liquid metal foam stability. This method is based on making single films from liquid Al and Al alloys with and without stabilizing particles and to show how foams stability could be studied on a simplified system such as a single film instead of having to deal with a multitude of different structural elements present in a foam. It is found that merely weakly stable films can be made from commercially pure Al and no stable films from Al-Si alloys which do not contain any particles. In contrast, thin stable films without rupture could be made from aluminium alloy containing particles such as SiC and TiB2. Significant thinning of film is observed when the particle concentration decreases in the melt.