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+--- Thread: Article How super-strong 'metal foam' could transform space travel and defense (/thread-17410.html)
How super-strong 'metal foam' could transform space travel and defense - C C - Feb 18, 2025
https://gizmodo.com/how-super-strong-metal-foam-could-transform-space-travel-and-defense-2000562768
EXCERPTS: What’s as strong as steel, as light as aluminum, and capable of withstanding ballistic impact, fire, and radiation? Metal foam.
Over a decade ago, engineer Afsaneh Rabiei of North Carolina State University invented Composite Metal Foam (CMF)—a material made of hollow metal “bubbles” embedded in steel, titanium, aluminum, or other alloys. From air and space travel to defense, the exceptionally strong and lightweight material could have a variety of applications. After years of testing against ballistics, blasts, vibrations, radiation, and fire, Rabiei’s company, Advanced Materials Manufacturing, is officially ready for production.
[...] “The presence of air pockets inside CMF make it so effective at blocking heat, mainly because heat travels more slowly through air than through metal,” Rabiei explained in another university statement. That means CMF could protect heat-sensitive materials—whether hazardous chemicals or vehicles carrying astronauts through space.
On the topic of space, Rabiei revealed ten years ago that CMF is capable of shielding various forms of radiation. In a 2015 study published in the journal Radiation Physics and Chemistry, her team showed that CMF is effective at blocking X-rays and gamma rays (dangerous space radiation) as well as neutron radiation (which takes place in nuclear reactors and during nuclear explosions).
“In short, CMFs hold promise for a variety of applications: from space exploration to shipping nuclear waste, explosives and hazardous materials, to military and security applications and even cars, buses and trains,” Rabiei said in the statement on the ballistic tests... (MORE - missing details)