Additive Manufacturing of Aluminum Alloys Using Pulsed Selective Laser Melting

Additive Manufacturing (AM) of aluminum and its alloys has great potential for aerospace applications. Such lightweight material combine with AM manufacturing route is capable of producing ultra-lightweight 
design with... [ view full abstract ]

Additive Manufacturing (AM) of aluminum and its alloys has great potential for aerospace applications. Such lightweight material combine with AM manufacturing route is capable of producing ultra-lightweight 
design with complex internal geometries and lattice structures suitable for aerospace designs. Novel technique of Selective Laser Melting using pulsed-laser source to additively fabricate aluminum alloys (Al-12Si &Al-10Si-Mg) are demonstrated and studied in this work. Pulsed Selective Laser Melting (P-SLM) allows greater control over heat input, which enables further microstructure optimization. In this study, near full density Al-12Si and Al-10Si-Mg with refine microstructure using P-SLM are achieved. This unique microstructure modification leads to improved mechanical properties including high hardness of 135HV without post heat treatment is also obtained. P-SLM enabled Si grain refinement (below 200nm) and microstructure shape modification deviate from conventional SLM continuous-laser source will be discussed.