Revolutionary coatings: Unlocking the full potential of energy dissipation and mechanical properties in nickel foam

Abstract

Applying coatings to metal foam is an effective way to enhance mechanical, damping, and impact properties, etc. In this study, nickel foam coated with graphene, resin, and a combination of both graphene and resin are prepared. The graphene coating improves the damping properties of the nickel foam by 195 %, which is more effective than the improvement of 176 % achieved by the resin coating. The maximum damping ratio (12.37 %) is observed in Nf/G-400 nm-resin, under the same initial vibration amplitude, it takes 0.3 s for Nickel foam to decay to a stable state, while Nf/G-400 nm-resin only takes 0.05 s. In other words, the graphene-resin coating reduces the vibration decay time of the nickel foam to one-sixth of the original time. Regarding the enhancement of mechanical properties of the nickel foam, the graphene coating also demonstrates a superior performance. Specifically, the graphene coating increases the Young's modulus by approximately 71.06 %, higher than the increase of 36.37 % achieved by the resin coating. More importantly, the graphene coating maintains significant enhancement performance at high temperatures, where the resin coating lost its enhancement capability. Additionally, two coatings show the difference enhancement in sound absorption and impact resistance of the nickel foam. A damping model is employed for the coated nickel foam, concretizing the damping enhancement capabilities of different coatings and revealing the high damping properties exhibited by the graphene coating due to interfacial slippage.