Role of scan strategies on texture and mechanical properties of laser powder bed fusion aluminium alloy AlSi10Mg
摘要
Laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) of high-strength aluminum alloys is becoming more popular due to the advantages involved in the process such as minimal material wastage, and highly dense near-net components with complex geometries in one go. In the LPBF process, different parameters like laser power, scan speed, hatch distance, layer thickness, processing gas, laser beam size and scan strategy etc. which influence the final component properties. In the current work, the effect of different scan strategies such as stripe pattern with 670 scan rotation, and island strategy with different island sizes (2 × 2, 3 × 3, and 4 × 4 mm2) etc. on density, microstructure, texture, and mechanical properties of LPBF aluminium alloy AlSi10Mg has been studied. The highest relative density of 99.68% was observed in the 4 × 4 mm2 while the lowest roughness of 2.88 ± 0.10 was observed in the 2 × 2 mm2 island scan strategy sample. Microstructures of LPBF AlSi10Mg samples consist of fine grains, cellular, and columnar structures. Electron back scattered diffraction (EBSD) analysis showed 3.8 maximum texture density in the 3 × 3 mm2 island scan strategy sample. Ductility was found to be on increasing trend with an increase in the island size and a maximum ductility of 3.28 ± 0.17% was observed in the 4 × 4 mm2 island size compared to other scan strategy samples.