EUROPEAN CONGRESS AND EXHIBITION ON ADVANCED MATERIALS AND PROCESSES - EUROMAT 2021

Wire-based additive manufacturing (WAM) has been shown to be a feasible technology for manufacturing of metallic components of medium complexity with a high deposition rate. Thereby, wire feedstock is conveyed into an energy source such as an electric or plasma arc, in turn melting the wire and forming a droplet, which is subsequently deposited on the substrate or the previous layers. For an enhanced exploitation of the benefits of this technology high-strength alloys with good mechanical performance are required. However, most high-strength aluminum alloys show a poor processability due to their hot-cracking susceptibility following the specific solidification conditions prevailing during WAM.
We report on the results of a novel Al-Mg-Zn-Cu alloy, which is well processible by WAM and exhibits good mechanical properties. After moderate compositional adaptions no hot-cracks were observed. The deposited structures were analyzed regarding microstructure and mechanical properties after optimization of the heat treatment. The microstructure is characterized by nearly equiaxed grains with nano-scaled precipitates following the artificial age-hardening heat treatment. The determined mechanical properties appear promising for future aerospace applications.
The reported results contribute to the understanding of the process-structure-property relationship of an advanced and tailored WAM aluminum alloy – a prerequisite for its further use in aerospace industries.