@article{garcia-avila_portanova_rabiei_2015, title={Ballistic performance of composite metal foams}, volume={125}, ISSN={["1879-1085"]}, DOI={10.1016/j.compstruct.2015.01.031}, abstractNote={The application of advance materials to manufacture hard armor systems has led to high performance ballistic protection. Due to its light-weight and high impact energy absorption capabilities, composite metal foams have shown good potential for applications as ballistic armor. A high-performance light-weight composite armor system has been manufactured using boron carbide ceramics as the strike face, composite metal foam processed by powder metallurgy technique as a bullet kinetic energy absorber interlayer, and aluminum 7075 or Kevlar™ panels as backplates with a total armor thickness less than 25 mm. The ballistic tolerance of this novel composite armor system has been evaluated against the 7.62 × 51 mm M80 and 7.62 × 63 mm M2 armor piercing projectiles according to U.S. National Institute of Justice (NIJ) standard 0101.06. The results showed that composite metal foams absorbed approximately 60–70% of the total kinetic energy of the projectile effectively and stopped both types of projectiles with less depth of penetration and backplate deformation than that specified in the NIJ 0101.06 standard guidelines. Finite element analysis was performed using Abaqus/Explicit to study the failure mechanisms and energy absorption of the armor system. The results showed close agreement between experimental and analytical results.}, journal={COMPOSITE STRUCTURES}, author={Garcia-Avila, Matias and Portanova, Marc and Rabiei, Afsaneh}, year={2015}, month={Jul}, pages={202–211} }
 @article{garcia-avila_rabiei_2015, title={Effect of Sphere Properties on Microstructure and Mechanical Performance of Cast Composite Metal Foams}, volume={5}, ISSN={["2075-4701"]}, DOI={10.3390/met5020822}, abstractNote={Aluminum-steel composite metal foams (Al-S CMF) are manufactured using steel hollow spheres, with a variety of sphere carbon content, surface roughness, and wall porosity, embedded in an Aluminum matrix through gravity casting technique. The microstructural and mechanical properties of the material were studied using scanning electron microscopy, energy dispersive spectroscopy, and quasi-static compressive testing. Higher carbon content and surface roughness in the sphere wall were responsible for an increase in formation of intermetallic phases which had a strengthening effect at lower strain levels, increasing the yield strength of the material by a factor of 2, while higher sphere wall porosity resulted in a decrease on the density of the material and improving its cushioning and ductility maintaining its energy absorption capabilities.}, number={2}, journal={METALS}, author={Garcia-Avila, Matias and Rabiei, Afsaneh}, year={2015}, month={Jun}, pages={822–835} }
 @article{rabiei_garcia-avila_2013, title={Effect of various parameters on properties of composite steel foams under variety of loading rates}, volume={564}, ISSN={["0921-5093"]}, DOI={10.1016/j.msea.2012.11.108}, abstractNote={Steel–steel composite metal foams (CMF) are manufactured using steel hollow spheres (with variety of different sphere sizes, surface roughness and carbon content) embedded in a stainless steel matrix through powder metallurgy technique and are investigated experimentally under compression loading with variety of loading rates. The microstructural and mechanical properties of the material were studied using optical and scanning electron microscopy, energy dispersive spectroscopy, quasi-static, and dynamic compressive loading up to 26 m/s. It is observed that the yield and plateau strength as well as the energy absorption capabilities of the composite foams are increased with increasing loading rate and by decreasing sphere sizes. Such mechanical properties improved by additional carbon content in the sphere wall at strains below 17% while the effect of density, resulted from porosity content, showed an improvement on the densification strain and plateau strengths at higher than 17% strain. The effect of spheres surface roughness and carbon content on mechanical properties of CMF seemed to be minimal compared to other parameters. As a result, the features controlling the life time and performance of composite metal foams under static and dynamic loading have been categorized into two main groups. The first group that controls the yield and plateau strength of the foam at lower strain levels includes bonding strength between the spheres and matrix which is a function of the sphere surface roughness and the gradient chemical composition between the spheres and matrix. The second group that controls the relative density, densification strain and plateau strength at higher strain levels belongs to the sphere diameter and the porosity content in both spheres and matrix. Moreover, increasing the loading rate improves the yield strength of all CMF samples.}, journal={MATERIALS SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING A-STRUCTURAL MATERIALS PROPERTIES MICROSTRUCTURE AND PROCESSING}, author={Rabiei, Afsaneh and Garcia-Avila, Matias}, year={2013}, month={Mar}, pages={539–547} }