Microstructure,cracking behavior and control of Al-Fe-V-Si alloy produced by selective laser melting

Selective laser melting(SLM)technology based on atomized powder was used to fabricate Al-8.5Fe-1.3V-1.7Si(wt%)alloy parts.The microstructure and crack characterization of SLM samples fabricated at various conditions were presented.Results show that the cracks appear periodically along the building direction,initiate preferably at the outer edges of the as-built samples and propagated along the remelting border zone(RBZ)into deposited layers.Solid-phase cracking is proposed according to the fracture morphology.The thermal-induced residual stress during SLM combined with the precipitation of relatively large-sized Al_mFe phase in the RBZ results in the formation of cracks.Enhancing scanning speed and hatch distance enable to reduce the cracking sensitivity.The crack-free Al-8.5Fe-1.3V-1.7Si parts can be fabricated at optimized parameters of laser power of 320 W,scanning speed of 1000 mm·s^(-1)and hatch distance of0.10 mm along with proper laser pre-heating procedure.The samples built horizontally show good ultimate tensile properties of 454 MPa in average with the elongation of7.2%.

Selective Laser Melting of an Al–Fe–V–Si Alloy:Microstructural Evolution and Thermal Stability

Selective laser melting was used to produce an aluminum alloy Al-8.5Fe-1.3V-1.7Si（wt%）. The effects of heat treatment on microstructure evolution and phase stability during long-term thermal exposure of the deposits were investigated. Results show that the microquasi-crystalline phase, Al12（Fe,V）3Si and AlmF e metastable phases coexisted with α-Al in the as-produced alloy. Annealing at 400 ℃ resulted in decomposition of microquasi-crystalline phase and supersaturated α-Al into Al12（Fe, V）3Si phase in the fusion zone, accompanied by the decrease in alloy hardness. The activation energy of this decomposition process was 115 k J/mol. A more homogenous microstructure was obtained after annealing at 400 °C for 60 min,which was resistant to coarsening exposed at 425 °C up to 500 h. The Al12（Fe,V）3Si and AlmF e phases were coarsened at 475 and 525℃ with increasing the exposure time. Coarsening of Al12（Fe,V）3Si phase was attributed to a combination of volume diffusion and grain boundary diffusion mechanism of Fe. Heat treatment at 600℃ resulted in accelerated microstructure coarsening and formation of large-sized equilibrium phases, which signi？cantly degraded the room temperature microhardness.