Fatigue crack growth behavior and mechanical properties of additively processed EN AW-7075 aluminium alloy

Abstract

Selective Laser Melting (SLM®), an additive manufacturing (AM) technology, allows manufacturing of geometrically complex metallic parts directly. In the SLM technology, a high energy laser beam is applied to melt a thin layer of the metallic powder according to the information provided by CAD files. This layer-wise manufacturing offers the opportunity to create complex parts for application areas e.g., aerospace and automotive industries where the lightweight design has been and still is a priority for material development in recent years. Therefore, the materials such as aluminium alloys come into focus due to their low density and high mechanical characteristics. In view of these aspects, previously unused high strength aluminium alloy EN AW-7075 powder was produced by gas atomization and processed by SLM® as presented in this paper. Initially, specimens were produced to examine monotonic and fracture mechanical properties in different building directions. The tensile tests and the fracture examinations show an anisotropic material behaviour. The fatigue crack growth curves have the double S shape, which is typical of aluminium. Mechanical characteristics obtained from the experiments are lower in comparison to the conventionally manufactured aluminium alloy properties.