Research progress in preparation, property and application of steel foam

As a new type of structural-functional material developed in recent years, steel foam has the advantages of high specific strength and specific stiffness, high specific surface area, light weight, energy absorption and shock absorption, porous filtration, electromagnetic shielding and biocompatibility. It has a broad application prospect in aerospace, automobile, shipbuilding, civil engineering, heat dissipation and heat insulation, catalysis and filtration, electromagnetic shielding, biomedical engineering and other fields. In this paper, the research and development situation and existing problems of new steel foam are reviewed, and the preparation process, structure , performance characteristics and application fields of steel form are introduced, including the advantages and disadvantages of the existing preparation process, cell structure characteristics, mechanical properties （yield strength, elastic modulus, energy absorption value）, physical properties （heat dissipation and insulation, sound absorption and insulation, electromagnetic shielding）, biological properties and application of steel foam. The existing problems of steel foam and the limiting factors of its industrial development and application are analyzed. In general, the existing research has proved the feasibility of steel foam development and application as a light-weight high strength structural material and a special functional material, and pointed out the technical and theoretical research work to be carried out in the future.