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Morphological analysis of pores in directionally freeze-cast titanium foams

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Abstract

Synchrotron x-ray tomography was performed on titanium foams with aligned, elongated pores, initially created by sintering directionally freeze-cast preforms using two different powder sizes. Three-dimensional reconstructions of the pore structures were analyzed morphologically using interface shape and interface normal distributions. A smaller powder size leads to more completely sintered titanium walls separating the dendritic pores, which in turn created a more compact distribution of pore shapes as well as stronger pore directionality parallel to the ice growth direction. The distribution of pore shapes is comparable to trabecular bone reported in the literature, indicating the foam’s potential as a bone replacement material.

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Acknowledgments

This research is supported by the Department of Energy Office of Basic Energy Science (Grant CNV0037736) and the National Science Foundation (Grant DMR0505772). J.L. Fife also gratefully acknowledges a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. Part of this work was performed at the DuPont-Northwestern-Dow Collaborative Access Team (DND-CAT) located at Sector 5 of the Advanced Photon Source (APS). DND-CAT is supported by E.I. DuPont de Nemours & Co., The Dow Chemical Company and the State of Illinois. Use of the APS was supported by the United States Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, under Contract No. DEAC0206CH11357. The authors thank Dr. Denis T. Keane for his invaluable assistance during the x-ray tomography experiments at APS.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, 60208-3108, USA

    J. L. Fife, J. C. Li, D. C. Dunand & P. W. Voorhees

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  1. J. L. Fife
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  2. J. C. Li
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  3. D. C. Dunand
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  4. P. W. Voorhees
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Correspondence to D. C. Dunand.

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Fife, J.L., Li, J.C., Dunand, D.C. et al. Morphological analysis of pores in directionally freeze-cast titanium foams. Journal of Materials Research 24, 117–124 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1557/JMR.2009.0023

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