Densification, microstructural evolutions of 90W-7Ni-3Fe tungsten heavy alloys during laser melting deposition process

Abstract

Thin walled 90W-7Ni-3Fe tungsten heavy alloys (WHAs) have been prepared by a laser melting deposition (LMD) additive manufacturing technique using different input laser volume energy densities. Detailed investigations on densification and microstructural evolutions of the LMD process have been carried out. The result shows that the sample density increases with increasing input energy density by elimination of “lack of fusion” defects. However, some gas delivered with powders gets trapped in the molten pool due to the fast cooling rate and complex shapes of W particles, resulting in a prevalence of small round pore defects even under high input energy densities. Near full density can be obtained when the energy density reaches 74 J/mm3. The LMD WHAs have two phase microstructures consisting of polygonal or dendritic W particles embedded in a nickel‑iron matrix, which has large sized columnar grains due to epitaxial growth. The polygonal particles are partially dissolved/melted W powder particles. The dendritic particles are newly formed grains due to the reprecipitation of supersaturated W in the nickel‑iron matrix during solidification. The proportion of dendritic particles increases with the increasing input energy density. A microstructure evolution process adapted from traditional liquid phase sintering process containing three stages of rearrangement, solution-reprecipitation, and solid state is proposed for the LMD process.