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Microstructure and mechanical properties of an in-situ TiB2 particle reinforced AlSi10Mg composite additive manufactured by selective electron beam melting

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Abstract

Selective electron beam melting (SEBM) has been recently employed for additive manufacturing (AM) Al alloys but showing comparatively low hardness and strength. In this work, SEBM technique was employed to additive manufacture an in-situ TiB2 particle reinforced AlSi10Mg composite. With optimized processing parameters, the SEBM TiB2/AlSi10Mg composite showed good surface quality and a high relative density. The as-printed composite exhibited a refined equiaxed grain structure with an average size of 27.7 µm. The eutectic Si phase was mostly spherical and uniformly distributed in the Al matrix, while the nano-sized TiB2 particles were partly agglomerated. The resultant microstructure was associated with the combined effect of the rapid solidification and annealing-like process during SEBM. Additionally, TiB2 particles facilitated grain refinement by enhancing the heterogeneous nucleation and retarding grain growth. The SEBM TiB2/AlSi10Mg composite presented a yield strength (YS) and ultimate tensile strength (UTS) of 103.6 MPa and 165.4 MPa, respectively, with an appreciable elongation of 15% at as-printed state. After a T6-like treatment, the YS and UTS of the composite were further improved to 225 MPa and 316 MPa, respectively, and an elongation of 12% was maintained. This paper shows the potency of SEBM in AM metal matrix composites (MMCs) with both agreeable strength and ductility.

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Data supporting the findings of the current study are available from the corresponding authors upon request.

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Acknowledgements

This work is financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [Nos. 51971137, 52071207] and Natural Science Foundation of Shanghai (China, Grant No. 22ZR1432800). The authors would like to acknowledge the facility support from Tianjin Qbeam-3d Technology Co. Ltd.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Metal Matrix Composites, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, 200240, People’s Republic of China

    Kaiwei Wu, Siming Ma, Yang Li, Haowei Wang, Mingliang Wang & Jun Liu

  2. SJTU-Paris Elite Institute of Technology, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, 200240, People’s Republic of China

    Kaiwei Wu & Zhe Chen

  3. Chengdu Aircraft Industrial (Group) Co., Ltd., Chengdu, 610073, People’s Republic of China

    Xin Fang

  4. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, People’s Republic of China

    Wenbin Kan

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  1. Kaiwei Wu
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  2. Siming Ma
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  4. Yang Li
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Contributions

KW done investigation, formal analysis, data curation, and writing—original draft preparation; SM done writing—reviewing & editing, data curation; XF performs validation; YL performed investigation; WK helped in resources, methodology; HW contributed to supervision; MW performed validation and data curation; JL performed investigation and methodology; ZC contributed to conceptualization, supervision, writing—review & and editing.

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Correspondence to Siming Ma or Zhe Chen.

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Wu, K., Ma, S., Fang, X. et al. Microstructure and mechanical properties of an in-situ TiB2 particle reinforced AlSi10Mg composite additive manufactured by selective electron beam melting. J Mater Sci 58, 7915–7929 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10853-023-08516-1

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