Effect of process parameters on microstructures and properties of Al-42Si alloy fabricated by selective laser melting.

In this paper, high-silicon Al-42Si alloy was prepared by selective laser melting (SLM) with different process parameters. Microstructures evolution and defects formation were studied and process parameters were optimized. The results shown that the density of SLM-fabricated Al-42Si alloy increases as input energy density increases. The highest and lowest density of SLM-fabricated Al-42Si alloy are obtained, when input energy density is 42.9J/mm3 and 33.8J/mm3 respectively. The microstructures of Al-42Si alloy fabricated by selective laser melting is mainly composed of primary silicon phase and eutectic silicon phase, which is distinct from casting alloy because of diffient grains size and shapes of the primary silicon. With higher energy density, larger size of the primary silicon observed during process due to higher heat released by powder. The size of primary silicon phase particles is in the range of 2.9-9.4µm, and the size of molten pool during SLM process is in the range of 125 ± 10µm-140 ± 10µm in this study. Also the hardness of SLM-fabricated Al-42Si alloy increases as input energy density increases between 40.0J/mm3 and 42.9J/mm3. After heat treatment, the residual stress is eliminated, microstructure stability and homogeneous of SLM-fabricated Al-42Si alloy are improved. The silicon distribution is more uniform and sizes increases about 1∼2µm, and the hardness decreases after heat treatment. The optimal SLM parameters for Al-42Si alloy are laser power of 320W, scanning speed of 1355 mm/s, layer thickness of 50µm and scanning space of 110µm.

Effect of growth rate on microstructure evolution in directionally solidified Ti-47Al alloy.

The microstructures and morphologies of directionally solidified Ti-47Al alloys with different growth rates ranging from 1 to 200 µm/s were investigated using the Bridgman directionally solidified method. The results showed that numerous columnar grains were formed along the growth direction with the onset of directional solidification. With a variation in the growth rate, the solid/liquid interface changed from a flat to cellular and to dendritic interface. The flat-to-cellular interface transition rate of the Ti-47Al alloy varied from 1 to 3 µm/s. When the growth rate was higher than 10 µm/s, the solid/liquid interface showed typical dendritic growth. During the directional solidification process, the main phase of the directionally solidified Ti-47Al alloy was the α phase, which can be attributed to the solute segregation, supercooling of the components, and contamination of the alloy melt by the Y2O3 ceramic shell. After reaching the steady growth state during the directional solidification process, the solidification path of the alloy was: L→α→α+γ→(α2+γ) + γ. With an increase in the growth rate, the primary dendrite spacing (λ) and lamellar spacing (λs) of the alloy decreased gradually.