29 - High performance aluminium components produced by laser powder bed fusion: fatigue performance of Aheadd© CP1
Abstract
The use of components made by Additive Manufacturing (AM) in demanding environments requires the demonstration of the capability of a component to resist the anticipated fatigue loads over its total lifetime. Aheadd® CP1 (AA8A61.50) specifically designed for laser powder bed fusion (LPBF), offers excellent fatigue properties as it has a very broad process window for printing to low defect sizes, a flaw-tolerant microstructure and a process route involving only aging at typically 400°C after building, resulting in a very low residual stress level. Laser powder bed fusion of aluminium has huge potential for flexible manufacturing systems producing complex, high-quality components with low lead times. The component fatigue performance is strongly dependent on the LPBF process, which determines material flaw sizes and surface roughness, post-processing operations, and the component geometry. So, a first approach to fatigue assessment would be to test full components following a statistically relevant methodology. Since full components can be printed without tooling and assembly costs, this approach can make sense provided functional testing can be done at acceptable cost, and we need only to confirm that we have a comfortable margin in terms of component fatigue performance. Empirical safety factors as used for example in aluminium aerospace castings will limit the use of LPBF in structural components. A smarter approach in the medium term is to use a fatigue model to define the required component quality, potentially segmenting different zones of a part, to drive non-destructive characterization. For this purpose, Kitagawa diagrams are developed for AA8A61.50 in various configurations, and compared to literature data pertaining to other Aluminum-based materials. Defect sizes are here obtained by fractography. Non-destructive methods are proposed that could be used for further developing the approach thereby favoring the implementation of AM in structural applications.
Speaker
Jean-Christophe Ehrström
Discover speaker profileConstellium C-TEC, Voreppe, France
See LinkedIn profileConference
29 - High performance aluminium components produced by laser powder bed fusion: fatigue performance of Aheadd© CP1
Date/Time
21/03/2024
11:45 am -12:05 pm
Location
Room 6