The presented work is based on the wave propagation properties of composite metal foams in a two-dimensional model with a focus on the energy absorption. The energy flux method was used for the study and it was shown that composite metal foams have a significant energy absorption capacity. Hence, they can be used with high efficiency, for example, as a sound insulation layer. A pair of materials commonly used in syntactic metal foams, iron shell and aluminium matrix material, was used in the finite element model. Damping is included in the calculations to avoid oscillations.