Ceramic Foam Introduction

Ceramic foam, like reticulated polyurethane foam, has open cell walls. The openings in the cell walls form channels through the foam. These channels allow fluid to pass through the foam with a relatively low pressure drop. The structure of the ceramic foam ligaments means a high specific surface area and a low overall weight. All of the properties of regular ceramics are present in ceramic foam. Additionally, a high specific surface area, and low weight makes ceramic foam an excellent choice for high temperature applications where, structural rigidity, insulation from heat, and low weight are important.

Duocel Ceramic Foam

There are several types of Duocel Ceramic Foam including: silicon foam, silicon carbide foam, silicon nitride foam, silicon nitride/carbide foam, boron carbide foam, boron nitride foam, hafnium carbide foam, tantalum carbide foam, Zirconium carbide foam and a number of others. All Duocel Foams are produced as open celled reticulated foams. Ceramic foams are available in the same densities as our RVC.

Applications of Ceramic Foam:

            Duocel Ceramic foam has been used in filtration systems, catalyst systems, and lightweight optics. See our product gallery or silicon carbide page for more information.

 

Silicon Carbide Mirrors

Our silicon carbide foam is used as a core material for silicon carbide lenses. The ceramic foam is cut to shape and skinned with silicon carbide. The lens is then polished to an optics grade finish. Using a foam core in mirror optics effectively lowers the overall component weight to 10% of a typical solid glass or metal optic. Also, the structure of the skinned foam core increases the natural frequency of the component, dampening unwanted vibrations, and improving stability. These mirrors are well suited for use in lightweight satellite optics, and high precision optical arrays.