Correlations between Microstructure Characteristics and Mechanical Properties in 5183 Aluminium Alloy Fabricated by Wire-Arc Additive Manufacturing with Different Arc Modes.

Xuewei Fang,Xiaofeng Dang,Guopeng Chen,Lei Wang,Ke Huang,Bingheng Lu,Lijuan Zhang

doi:10.3390/ma11112075

Abstract

The effect of arc modes on the microstructure and tensile properties of 5183 aluminium alloy fabricated by cold metal transfer (CMT) processes has been thoroughly investigated. Heat inputs of CMT processes with three arc modes, i.e., CMT, CMT advance (CMT+A), and CMT pulse (CMT+P), were quantified, and their influence on the formation of pores were investigated. The highest tensile strength was found from samples built by the CMT+A process. This agrees well with their smallest average pore sizes. Average tensile strengths of CMT+A arc mode-built samples were 296.9 MPa and 291.8 MPa along the horizontal and vertical directions, respectively. The difference of tensile strength along the horizontal and vertical directions of the CMT+P and CMT samples was mainly caused by the pores at the interfaces between each deposited layer. The successfully built large 5183 aluminium parts by the CMT+A arc mode further proves that this arc mode is a suitable mode for manufacturing of 5183 aluminium alloy.

Highlights

In the past two decades, additive manufacturing (AM) has gained more and more attention in the manufacturing industry, especially in creating models and prototypes
The main objective of this study was to provide a fundamental understanding of microstructure evolution involved in the cold metal transfer (CMT)-based AM method with interest on the relationships among heat input, porosity, microstructures, and mechanical properties of 5183-Al fabricated by wire-arc additive manufacturing (WAAM) process
The heat input of these three kinds of arc modes were calculated by the following equation [22,23]

Summary

Introduction

In the past two decades, additive manufacturing (AM) has gained more and more attention in the manufacturing industry, especially in creating models and prototypes. This technology has begun to emerge as an important commercial manufacturing method [1]. Research interests in AM have focused on fabricating complex-shaped metal components that cannot be produced using traditional approaches. The majority of AM researches have been focusing on the powder-bed-based selective laser melting and electron beam melting processes with different materials, such as Titanium alloy, Ti-based composites, Ni-based superalloy, Aluminium alloys and Al-based composites [3,4]

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