Northeastern University is one of the earliest institutions to study metal foams in China. Our team has been studying foam metals for more than 20 years, and has formed its own characteristics in the research of light metal (Al, Mg, Si, Ti) foam materials. With the help of the abundant research foundation of the first-class discipline of metallurgical engineering at Northeastern University, the team summarized the preparation methods of foam metal into liquid phase method and solid phase method, which guided the research and development of foam metal. Among them, when preparing foam Al and Mg by liquid phase method, melt transfer foaming was transformed into direct rapid foaming, which realized efficient, rapid and homogeneous preparation of foam Al and Mg. At present, a mature technology that can be industrialized has been formed and is being popularized and applied in many cities in China. Titanium foam was prepared by vacuum distillation-continuous sintering technology, which achieved a breakthrough in the preparation of refractory metal foam with a high melting point, and is being tested in military engineering. Porous silicon was prepared by vapor phase dealloying technology, which has great application prospects in battery anode materials, hydrogen production electrode materials and new luminescent materials. Compared with the solid phase method (powder metallurgy) in Germany, the liquid phase method is put forward to prepare interfacial metallurgical bonded foam metal (Al, Mg) sandwich panels, and the technological methods of preparing steel/aluminum composite sandwich panels by hot pressing and aluminum/aluminum composite sandwich panel by hot rolling are further put forward. At the same time, the technical route of preparing metal foam special-shaped parts (Al, Mg) by liquid phase method is put forward, which will make the application prospect of metal foam (Al, Mg) in petroleum, machinery manufacturing and automobile industries come true. The research of our team has been paid close attention to by European countries such as Germany and Norway and domestic scientific research institutions. At the same time, the mechanical properties (quasi-static bending, compression bar impact, explosion/penetration impact), damping properties, acoustic properties and applications of light metal foams were studied in detail.