Highly Porous Structures Made from Intermetallics and Superalloys

In past years, a new approach towards highly porous metal components has been under development at the Dresden based Department of Powder Metallurgy and Composite Materials of IFAM. The components are made from melt extracted metal fibres, where the consolidation of the porous structure is achieved by sintering. Interest in such openporous structures arises mostly from functional hgih-temperature applications. Accordingly, components with porosities of 50 to 95% were manufactured from intermetallics (like Ni3Al and FeAl) and superalloys (alloy 602 CA). Depending on the type of applicatoin, they were made in different shapes such as flat plates for heat shielding or tube-shaped filter candles for hot gas filtration. In this paper, an overview of application testing results, as well as materials properties such as heat conductivity, strength, oxidation and thermoshock data is given.