Laser Fusion of Aluminum Powder Coated with Diamond Particles via Selective Laser Melting: Powder Preparation and Synthesis Description

Alexander S Shinkaryov,Ivan A Pelevin,Vyacheslav N Anikin,Stanislav V Chernyshikhin,Maxim A Burmistrov,Sergey A Eremin,Alexander A Gromov,Dmitriy Yu Ozherelkov,Anton Yu Nalivaiko

doi:10.3390/coatings11101219

Abstract

This work aims to study the possibility of obtaining Al–C composite from AlSi10MgCu aluminum matrix with the addition of 500 nm-sized diamond particles by selective laser melting (SLM) process. Al–C composite powder was prepared by mechanical mixing to form a uniform cover along the surface of aluminum particles. The diamond content in the resulting AlSi10MgCu-diamond composite powder was equal to 0.67 wt %. The selection of the optimal SLM parameters for the obtained composite material is presented. For materials characterization, the following methods were used: scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and Raman spectroscopy. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) was applied after SLM printing for a detailed investigation of the obtained composites. The presence of carbon additives and the formation of aluminum carbides in the material after the SLM process were demonstrated.

Highlights

Composite materials are widely used in many fields of structural applications due to their excellent properties, which significantly exceed the characteristics of traditional materials
This paper aimed to study the processibility of aluminum–diamond composite powder coated with 500 nm diamond particles during the selective laser melting process
The substrate material used during the experimental printing was an aluminum–magnesium alloy of the AlMg5 grade

Summary

Introduction

Composite materials are widely used in many fields of structural applications due to their excellent properties, which significantly exceed the characteristics of traditional materials. Aluminum and aluminum-matrix composites (AMC) have high corrosion resistance and a successful combination of high strength with low density, which gives good specific strength [1,2,3]. AMC and other metal matrix composites (MMC) are widely used for various applications in the aerospace and automotive industries due to their excellent properties, such as light weight, high specific strength, and good wear resistance. Selective laser melting (SLM) gives an excellent opportunity for creating new MMC with superfine microstructures, optimized weight, high strength, and stiffness [4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13]. Introducing new dissimilar components such as reinforcing particles or fibers into the matrix material [14,15] allows us to receive a new material with properties quantitatively and qualitatively different from the original ones

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Results