It’s been quite a few years since Cymat Technologies Ltd. built the world’s first commercial stabilized aluminum foam (SAF) casting line—1998 to be exact.

But what started out as lab-scale technology is now a full-blown manufacturing company servicing the architectural and automotive industries, and diversifying into military applications.

The technology was originally discovered by Alcan International—now Rio Tinto Alcan—and Norsk Hydro of Norway, while developing wear-resistant aluminum products.

The companies stumbled upon a casting alloy with ceramic particles that created unwanted porosity and holes in the material. With further investigation of the frothy process the end result produced aluminum foam.

After pouring millions of dollars into developing the technology and investigating its possibilities, Cymat—established in 1990 as specialized lightweight aluminum packaging and enclosures manufacturer for the pharmaceutical and telecommunications industry—saw an opportunity for commercialization and nabbed it.

“In early 2000, Cymat licensed the technology from Alcan and bought the patents outright from Norsk Hydro to really productionize it to where it is today,” says Tim Hardman, Cymat’s president.

Aluminum foam forming

Cymat’s proprietary technology and process uses four basic steps:

Aluminum ingots composed of up to 50 per cent recycled material are melted and transferred to a foaming box. Gas is injected into the molten mixture, which contains tiny ceramic particles, to form liquid foam that solidifies into the desired shape, such as a panel.

The density of the bubbles determines the strength of the products produced.

The panels are lightweight and environmentally sound (they are totally recyclable) and provide some noise attenuation.

Trade-named Alusion, Cymat's architectural panels are used in show rooms as platforms for vehicles such as the Audi R8 sports car; wall cladding for architectural accents; signage; and furniture.

This architectural material consists of sheets of unique bubble patterns and has been used to make up a feature wall at the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver.

Casting process opens doors

Cymat also uses the foam in a three-dimensional casting process.

“On our ‘3-D castor’, we draw liquid aluminum out of a crucible and up into a mold to create a shape,” says Hardman. “Then we have our own black box and computer on a fairly standard low pressure castor. We bubble into the mold, displace the aluminum, then release the pressure and you have the part.”

 

Grabbing two hand-weight shaped examples from a shelf in his office—one made of a solid metal and one SAF product—he explains, “We can make near net shapes. These are called dog bones and you can feel the difference between a solid dog bone and the one that’s full of bubbles.”

The SAF example, which is considerably lighter, is Cymat’s automotive alternative for light-weighting vehicles.

Partnered with German-based automotive supplier and manufacturer, Georg Fischer, Cymat’s foam technology is used to fill complex hollow aluminum parts. This reduces vehicle weight and significantly cuts noise, vibration and harshness (NVH), a automotive design consideration.

Through this partnership, Hardman says they have a number of auto-related projects underway in Europe.

But Cymat’s biggest opportunity may be in military applications.

Big bang theory

“Our material has a substantial roll to play in military armor and we’re looking at blast mitigation and ballistic backing,” says Hardman.

For military applications, a high-density version of Cymat’s aluminum foam has been branded SmartMetal.

“We picked [that name] not because it’s a sexy marketing term, but because we can tune the material to the size of threat by changing the bubble size,” says Hardman. “There’s no other foam manufacturer in the world with Cymat’s range of densities of five to 25 per cent.”

With the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, military forces are looking for new blast mitigation capability, particularly to withstand roadside bombs, also known as improvised explosive devices (IEDs).

Traditional armor strategies use successive layers of armor with air gaps to mitigate the blast. But Hardman says, “This is no longer effective in all cases due to the sheer size of the blast events.”

The SmartMetal foam can be tuned to the size of a blast event and the size of the military vehicle. When applied as a backing to ceramic or Kevlar armor on the sides and bottom of tracked or wheeled light armored vehicle (LAV) and Humvees, the SmartMetal would absorb the blast, dissipate the energy as the bubbles collapse and stop it from transferring into the vehicle.

Forming a circle the size of a volleyball with his hands, Hardman explains, “If a bullet shell this big [hits the vehicle], you want to save as many discs of armor on the vehicle. By putting an absorber against the body of it, you can save more of the discs.”

“The [military] vehicles are already overweight, the engines and transmissions weren’t designed for this and are wearing out early,” says Hardman. “The foam weighs only a few hundred pounds, so in many cases we’re replacing a 7,000 pound solution with ten times the protection for less than half of that weight.”

 

Last spring, Cymat held an industry week in Nevada at a renowned blast facility to demonstrate a live blast event and present the raw data to military industry members from around the world. And since then it has announced a joint initiative between an independent military vehicle integrator and a major US armored vehicle OEM.

Integrating its SmartMetal foam product into its architectural panels is also attracting attention from Fortune 500 companies, consulates and embassies around the world looking for a visually pleasing protective barrier.

Cymat is now ramping up its 26,000-sq.-ft. facility to finally transition the technology to full commercialization by 2010.

Photos taken by Noelle Stapinski