Released on March 26, 2008

Georg Fischer, Schaffhausen, Switzerland, recently accepted a prototype from Cymat, Mississauga, Ontario, Canada, for a part commissioned on Sept. 18, 2007, that contains aluminum foam in its hollows.

The prototype, which is destined for a German automotive OEM, represents the first time a hollow aluminum part has been filled with the proprietary aluminum foam. The car component was filled at Cymat’s facility in Toronto and was successfully completed as a result of a team effort by Georg Fischer and Cymat.

“Georg Fischer has experienced an increase in automaker demands for lighter components [that] at the same time requiring reduced noise vibration and hardness associated with lighter parts,” said Georg Fischer’s Leopold Kniewallner, head of research and development in Schaffhausen.

Cymat’s metallic foam is manufactured by bubbling gas through molten alloyed aluminum containing a dispersion of fine ceramic particles. The result is a material with low density, mechanical energy absorption, thermal and acoustic insulation, is recyclable, time and temperature insensitive and has a relatively low cost of production. One of the challenges was to manage the similar melting points of both materials without deforming or melting the target part while at the same time filling complex sections.