Determination of Heat Treatment Effect on 6XXX Series Aluminum Foams by Design of Experiment

6XXX Aluminum foam samples were produced from Si, Mg and TiH₂ elemental powders, via compact powder melting method. In order to evaluate and tailor their mechanical properties, each sample was subjected to heat treatment at 540°C for 40 min and aged naturally. Response Surface Methodology (RSM) is used to study the effect of the powder mixture composition on the hardness of as foamed and heat treated foamed. The results for the hardness of the samples have been analyzed by using Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and Regression Analyses. Optical Microscopy (OM) and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) were utilized to investigate the microstructure of all the samples. The study revealed that the amount of silicon and magnesium have been the key factors affecting the mechanical properties of as foamed and fully heat-treated samples since AlFeSi and Mg₂Si were found within their microstructural analysis.