Feasibility of using ground Al-Al2O3 composite powders in laser powder bed fusion

Abstract

The reincorporation of residues in the productive cycle helps reduce CO2 emissions and non-renewable resources extraction. Therefore, the present work studies the feasibility of reincorporating an aluminum residue in the productive cycle by means of an additive manufacturing technique. In this context, other issues considered are the importance of aluminum alloys, the improvement of their properties by adding alumina making composites materials, and issues that must be overcome when printing parts by laser powder bed fusion using a mix of Al and alumina powders. This work evaluates the suitability of Al alloy - alumina composite powders obtained by grinding Al alloy chips from sawing. Laser power and scanning speed were varied until the designed samples were obtained. The findings show that is possible to use powder obtained by grinding Al chips in the laser powder bed fusion technique to obtain Al-Al2O3 composites which exhibits hardness of 226 HV ± 34.3.