On March 19, 2020, NBZY Materials Technology Company released the newly developed ultra-high strength aluminum alloy powder for 3D printing. The test data shows that the aluminum alloy test piece 3D printed with this material has a room temperature tensile strength of more than 520MPa, a yield strength of more than 480MPa, and an elongation of more than 8%.
Global aluminum alloy powder market
In recent years, with the continuous breakthrough of aluminum alloy 3D printing technology, its application in aerospace, automotive and other fields has gradually exploded. In 2019, SmarTech released a market tracking and forecast report on aluminum alloy 3D printers. The report said that shipments of aluminum alloy powder increased by 43% in 2018, accounting for nearly 10% of 3D printed metal powder.
Aluminum alloy materials have a series of excellent characteristics such as light density, good elasticity, high specific rigidity and specific strength. Aluminum alloy workpieces produced by traditional processes have been widely adopted. When combined with 3D printing technology, aluminum alloy materials can further exert their advantages.
However, there are a series of technical difficulties in the production and preparation of aluminum alloy powder materials. Compared with materials such as titanium alloys and stainless steels, the research and application of 3D printing of aluminum alloys has only achieved rapid development in the past decade.
3D printing aluminum alloy powder application status
There are only a few materials such as AlSi10Mg and AlSi7Mg, which are traditionally used for additive manufacturing of aluminum alloy powders. They are based on the traditional cast aluminum alloy modified printing grades. Meet the needs of the aviation and aerospace fields.
Abroad, Airbus has developed a special high-strength aluminum alloy powder material Scalmalloy for additive manufacturing in response to the demand for additive manufacturing of aluminum alloy parts for aviation Level, has been applied to the additive manufacturing of structural parts of A320 aircraft cabin. Airbus also uses high-strength aluminum alloys to mass-produce and process the door lock shaft of the A350. While achieving weight reduction, it also greatly reduces the cost of component processing, and fully takes advantage of the high-strength aluminum alloy materials and process performance.
In addition, the application potential of 3D printed aluminum alloys in the automotive field is also huge. Not only can it ensure strength, but it can also reduce weight significantly.
Domestic powder manufacturers make breakthroughs
China's 3D printing metal powder manufacturers have been working on aluminum alloy materials. Among them, NBZY Material Technology is a typical representative. They have developed a number of R & D institutions in the United Nations to redesign the material composition, and fully considered the stress control during the material printing process, comprehensively considering the cost for batch application, after more than a year of successful research A high-strength aluminum alloy powder material was developed.
The high-strength aluminum alloy powder material for 3D printing developed by NBZY has stable mechanical properties, low stress, and uniform microstructure of the printed parts. Compared with similar high-strength aluminum alloy powder, there are fewer micro-cracks after printing. A high-strength aluminum alloy powder with excellent comprehensive performance, and the use cost is lower than imported similar products. "
The aluminum alloy powder developed by NBZY can be adapted to different types of 3D printers in China. The 3D printed tensile samples have been tested by a third-party organization. The test results show that "the tensile strength of the molded parts at room temperature reaches more than 520MPa, and the yield strength reaches 480MPa Above, the elongation reaches more than 8%. "
In addition, NBZY's technical team has broken through the difficulty of aluminum alloy flow through continuous research, and the flow rate of the printing powder Hall is within 100s. This shows that the aluminum alloy powder has good fluidity, which can improve the efficiency of powder spreading in the printing process and make the powder spreading effect better.
In addition to printing out tensile specimens with simple structures, NBZY also carried out further printing tests and successfully printed out the anti-snake shock absorber with a parametric structure optimization design.
With the continuous progress of aluminum alloy 3D printing materials and molding processes, it will quickly catch up with mainstream 3D printing materials such as titanium alloys, stainless steel, and high-temperature alloys, and become a new growth opportunity in the field of metal additive manufacturing. In the automotive and other industrial fields, we see more and more raw materials produced in China.
NBZY Advanced Materials Technologies Co., Ltd. uses first-class powder production technology by vacuum gas atomization (VIGA) and flawless induction melting gas atomization (EIGA), to engage in R & D with production of amorphous alloy powder, brazing powder, Titanium alloy powder , Nickel-based alloy powder for super alloy, heat-resistant alloy steel powder and mould steel powder. The sphericity, oxygen content, fluidity and particle size distribution of NBZY advanced metal powder have reached the first-class level of similar products in the world . Our products are aimed at the global high-end metal powder market and are applied in the fields of additive manufacturing, aerospace, nuclear industry, spraying, intelligent manufacturing, etc.
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