What Do You Know About Alloy Materials?

Posted by Johnson Brown on April 26th, 2022

The most widely used metal 3D printing application is cladding powder. Although the application of molten powder is not extensive enough at present, its market potential (such as titanium base, copper base, magnesium base, etc., most of which use some of its own unique properties to achieve high temperature resistance, corrosion resistance, oxidation resistance, heat fatigue resistance, friction resistance and other high-quality material properties) is large and suitable for further in-depth study.

Copper-based alloy material

Copper-based alloys have both good corrosion resistance and adhesive wear resistance. Copper-based laser additive repair and remanufacturing materials include Cu-Ni, Cu-Ni-B-Si, Cu-Ni-Fe-Co-CrSi-B, Cu-Zr-A1, Cu-Mn and Cu-Cr-Si, among which Cu-Ni alloys are widely used. Cu element can react with Zr, Mo, Si and other elements to form a strengthening phase and improve the wear resistance of the coating. The Cu-Co and Co-Fe alloys undergo melt separation within a certain composition range. During cooling, a high-melting hard phase is first precipitated, and then a peritectic reaction occurs to form an in-situ particle-reinforced composite material.

Titanium-based alloy materials

Titanium-based cladding materials are mainly used to improve the biocompatibility, wear resistance or corrosion resistance of the surface of the base metal material. The titanium-based laser additive repair and remanufacturing powder materials studied are mainly pure Ti powder, Ti6Al4V alloy powder, and titanium-based composite powders such as T-TiO₂, Ti-TIC, Ti-WC, T-Si, etc. Ti6AI4V alloy is a commonly used titanium alloy additive remanufacturing material system. The methods of additive remanufacturing include laser additive and plasma arc additive. Lin Jianjun et al. systematically studied the structure and performance of Ti6AI4V alloy by plasma arc additive, and compared with other methods in terms of performance. The results show that the maximum tensile strength of the Ti6AI4V forming layer obtained by plasma arc additive is 997MPa, and the maximum yield strength is 922MPa, which are higher than the strength of the forming layer obtained by other methods.

Magnesium-based alloy materials

Magnesium-based melt coating materials are mainly used for laser additive repair and refabrication of magnesium alloy surfaces in order to improve the wear resistance and corrosion resistance of magnesium alloy surfaces. Magnesium-based MEZ powder (composition: Zn 0.5%, Mn 0.1%, Zr 0.1%, RE 2%, Mg bal) was melted on a common commercial magnesium alloy. The results showed that the microhardness of the cladding layer was increased from 35 HV to 85–100 HV, and the corrosion resistance of the cladding layer in 3.56% (mass fraction) NaCl solution was greatly improved compared with that of the matrix magnesium alloy because of grain refinement and redistribution of intermetallic compounds.

Laser additive repair and remanufacturing materials are the main factors restricting the development and application of laser additive repair and remanufacturing technology. Although some progress has been made in the development of laser additive repair and remanufacturing materials, there is still a long distance from the quantitative design of alloy composition according to the designed melt properties and application requirements. Laser additive repair and remanufacturing materials are far from forming serialization and standardization, and it is still necessary to intensify in-depth research.