Abstract
Effective control of melting and solidification behaviours of materials is significant for numerous applications. It has been a long-standing challenge to increase the melted zone (MZ) depth while shrinking the heat-affected zone (HAZ) size during local melting and solidification of materials. In this paper, nanoparticle-induced unusual melting and solidification behaviours of metals are reported that effectively solve this long-time dilemma. By introduction of Al2O3 nanoparticles, the MZ depth of Ni is increased by 68%, while the corresponding HAZ size is decreased by 67% in laser melting at a pulse energy of 0.18 mJ. The addition of SiC nanoparticles shows similar results. The discovery of the unusual melting and solidification of materials that contain nanoparticles will not only have impacts on existing melting and solidification manufacturing processes, such as laser welding and additive manufacturing, but also on other applications such as pharmaceutical processing and energy storage.
Highlights
Effective control of melting and solidification behaviours of materials is significant for numerous applications
A large melted zone (MZ) generally requires a high energy input and thereby induces a large heat-affected zone (HAZ), which has remained as a critical challenge in melting-based materials processing technologies
This study is motivated by the substantial interest in the development of metal matrix nanocomposites (MMNCs), that is, metals containing nanoparticles
Summary
Effective control of melting and solidification behaviours of materials is significant for numerous applications. This work is focused on the specific effects of nanoparticles on the heat transfer, melt pool flow and microstructure evolution during laser melting and solidification processes.
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