The founder of SZBF Additive Technology Co., Ltd. and Academician Wu Xinhua of the Australian Academy of Engineering officially announced at the International Aeronautical Materials Conference held in Reno, USA. After nearly two years of research, Academician Wu led the research team of Monash University to successfully develop a high-strength Al250C grade. A special aluminum alloy material for high-toughness additive manufacturing adds another star member to 3D printed aluminum alloy materials. Al250C is a material specially designed by the research team for 3D printing, and has now reached the stage of mass production and commercial use. The launch of the Al250C powder product was immediately highly appreciated and valued by a number of aviation giants including American General Motors, Boeing, Raytheon, Safran and others. Using this material to make aerospace aluminum 3D printed structural parts is more promising to replace some of the titanium alloy components in the current aerospace and achieve the purpose of reducing weight and saving costs in the aerospace field.
Currently in the aerospace field, 3D printing technology can solve extremely complex precision component processing and manufacturing problems. It has inherent advantages in complex structural problems such as conformal inner channels, complex thin walls, hollow weight reduction, complex internal cavities, and multiple component integration. , Is an important area for the rapid development of 3D printing technology. However, in the application of 3D printed aluminum alloys, due to the forming characteristics of traditional aluminum alloys, most brands are not suitable for 3D printing. There are only several cast aluminum grade alloys suitable for 3D printing. Due to their own material performance limitations, they cannot be applied to large-scale applications in the high-end aerospace field, and it is difficult to meet high-strength, high-temperature use requirements, which greatly limits 3D printing in aerospace. Application requirements for weight reduction.
The strength of this Al250C material has reached the highest level among aluminum alloy materials currently available for 3D printing. The yield strength can reach 580 MPa, the tensile strength is above 590 MPa, and the elongation can reach 11%. The prepared component has passed the 5000-hour high-temperature stability test for 5,000 hours. , Which is equivalent to the requirements of 25 years of conventional engine service. Existing aluminum alloys AlMg7Si and AlMg10Si have a yield strength of 260 MPa, an elongation after printing of 4-6%, and a maximum use temperature of less than 100 ° C. Both in performance and use temperature, they cannot meet the requirements of aerospace aluminum alloy products. Demanding requirements, while the strength of Al250C is close to twice the strength of commonly used AlSi10Mg aluminum alloy materials. It is particularly pointed out that this material shows a very good high temperature service life. Compared with the Scalmalloy aluminum alloy currently suitable for metal 3D printing, its service life at 250 ° C is only 100 hours, while Al250C is used at the same temperature. The service life is more than 5000 hours, which greatly improves the service life.
At present, the aviation heat dissipation structure parts developed using this high-strength aluminum alloy material have successfully replaced the traditional medium temperature components made of titanium alloy, which has greatly reduced the design weight of the structure parts and successfully helped a certain French model engine to achieve weight reduction. Not long ago, SZBF also just used the material to print Al250C aviation aluminum alloy products with good performance indicators such as density and toughness. At the same time, they will further study the optimization of Al250C production process and its large-scale industrial application with great potential. According to reports, the R & D team adopted chemical composition adjustment, post-processing process optimization, and other methods, and independently adopted the control technology of high-strength aluminum alloy atomization and solidification process and high-purity gas atomization technology to produce high-strength batches with stable performance and excellent performance. The new aluminum alloy Al250C powder material has reached the standard for commercial application.