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In situ detection of cracks during laser powder bed fusion using acoustic emission monitoring
2022, Seleznev, Mikhail, Gustmann, Tobias, Friebel, Judith Miriam, Peuker, Urs Alexander, Kühn, Uta, Hufenbach, Julia Kristin, Biermann, Horst, Weidner, Anja
Despite rapid development of laser powder bed fusion (L-PBF) and its monitoring techniques, there is still a lack of in situ crack detection methods, among which acoustic emission (AE) is one of the most sensitive. To elaborate on this topic, in situ AE monitoring was applied to L-PBF manufacturing of a high-strength Al92Mn6Ce2 (at. %) alloy and combined with subsequent X-ray computed tomography. By using a structure borne high-frequency sensor, even a simple threshold-based monitoring was able to detect AE activity associated with cracking, which occurred not only during L-PBF itself, but also after the build job was completed, i.e. in the cooling phase. AE data analysis revealed that crack-related signals can easily be separated from the background noise (e.g. inert gas circulation pump) through their specific shape of a waveform, as well as their energy, skewness and kurtosis. Thus, AE was verified to be a promising method for L-PBF monitoring, enabling to detect formation of cracks regardless of their spatial and temporal occurrence.
Approach to Estimate the Phase Formation and the Mechanical Properties of Alloys Processed by Laser Powder Bed Fusion via Casting
2022, Kühn, Uta, Sander, Jan, Gabrysiak, Katharina Nicole, Giebeler, Lars, Kosiba, Konrad, Pilz, Stefan, Neufeld, Kai, Boehm, Anne Veronika, Hufenbach, Julia Kristin
A high-performance tool steel with the nominal composition Fe85Cr4Mo8V2C1 (wt%) was processed by three different manufacturing techniques with rising cooling rates: conventional gravity casting, centrifugal casting and an additive manufacturing process, using laser powder bed fusion (LPBF). The resulting material of all processing routes reveals a microstructure, which is composed of martensite, austenite and carbides. However, comparing the size, the morphology and the weight fraction of the present phases, a significant difference of the gravity cast samples is evident, whereas the centrifugal cast material and the LPBF samples show certain commonalities leading finally to similar mechanical properties. This provides the opportunity to roughly estimate the mechanical properties of the material fabricated by LPBF. The major benefit arises from the required small material quantity and the low resources for the preparation of samples by centrifugal casting in comparison to the additive manufacturing process. Concluding, the present findings demonstrate the high attractiveness of centrifugal casting for the effective material screening and hence development of novel alloys adapted to LPBF-processing.
Ti/Al multi-layered sheets: Accumulative roll bonding (Part A)
2016, Romberg, Jan, Freudenberger, Jens, Bauder, Hansjörg, Plattner, Georg, Krug, Hans, Holländer, Frank, Scharnweber, Juliane, Eschke, Andy, Kühn, Uta, Klauß, Hansjörg, Oertel, Carl-Georg, Skrotzki, Werner, Eckert, Jürgen, Schultz, Ludwig
Co-deformation of Al and Ti by accumulative roll bonding (ARB) with intermediate heat treatments is utilized to prepare multi-layered Ti/Al sheets. These sheets show a high specific strength due to the activation of various hardening mechanisms imposed during deformation, such as: hardening by grain refinement, work hardening and phase boundary hardening. The latter is even enhanced by the confinement of the layers during deformation. The evolution of the microstructure with a special focus on grain refinement and structural integrity is traced, and the correlation to the mechanical properties is shown.
High-Pressure-Sintering-Induced Microstructural Engineering for an Ultimate Phonon Scattering of Thermoelectric Half-Heusler Compounds
2021, He, Ran, Zhu, Taishan, Ying, Pingjun, Chen, Jie, Giebeler, Lars, Kühn, Uta, Grossman, Jeffrey C., Wang, Yumei, Nielsch, Kornelius
Thermal management is of vital importance in various modern technologies such as portable electronics, photovoltaics, and thermoelectric devices. Impeding phonon transport remains one of the most challenging tasks for improving the thermoelectric performance of certain materials such as half-Heusler compounds. Herein, a significant reduction of lattice thermal conductivity (κL) is achieved by applying a pressure of ≈1 GPa to sinter a broad range of half-Heusler compounds. Contrasting with the common sintering pressure of less than 100 MPa, the gigapascal-level pressure enables densification at a lower temperature, thus greatly modifying the structural characteristics for an intensified phonon scattering. A maximum κL reduction of ≈83% is realized for HfCoSb from 14 to 2.5 W m−1 K−1 at 300 K with more than 95% relative density. The realized low κL originates from a remarkable grain-size refinement to below 100 nm together with the abundant in-grain defects, as determined by microscopy investigations. This work uncovers the phonon transport properties of half-Heusler compounds under unconventional microstructures, thus showing the potential of high-pressure compaction in advancing the performance of thermoelectric materials.
Development and characterization of a metastable Al-Mn-Ce alloy produced by laser powder bed fusion
2021, Gabrysiak, Katharina, Gustmann, Tobias, Freudenberger, Jens, Neufeld, Kai, Giebeler, Lars, Leyens, Christoph, Kühn, Uta
Laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) can help to overcome two challenges occurring by casting of metastable Al alloys: (1) the high amount of casting defects and (2) the limited part size while maintaining rapid solidification of the whole cross-section. In this study, an Al92Mn6Ce2 alloy was processed crack-free without baseplate heating by LPBF. The high cooling rate during fabrication has a significant impact on the microstructure, which was characterized by SEM, TEM and XRD. The processing through LPBF causes a high amount and a strong refinement of the intermetallic Al20Mn2Ce precipitates. This leads, compared to suction-cast specimens, to a higher hardness (180 HV 5) and a higher tolerable compressive stress (>1200 MPa) associated with a pronounced plasticity without failure up to a strain of 40%. The extraordinary mechanical properties of additively manufactured Al92Mn6Ce2 can extend the possibilities of producing novel LPBF lightweight structures for potential applications under harsh conditions.
Ti/Al multi-layered sheets: Differential speed rolling (Part B)
2016, Romberg, Jan, Freudenberger, Jens, Watanabe, Hiroyuki, Scharnweber, Juliane, Eschke, Andy, Kühn, Uta, Klauß, Hansjörg, Oertel, Carl-Georg, Skrotzki, Werner, Eckert, Jürgen, Schultz, Ludwig
Differential speed rolling has been applied to multi-layered Ti/Al composite sheets, obtained from accumulative roll bonding with intermediate heat treatments being applied. In comparison to conventional rolling, differential speed rolling is more efficient in strengthening the composite due to the more pronounced grain refinement. Severe plastic deformation by means of rolling becomes feasible if the evolution of common rolling textures in the Ti layers is retarded. In this condition, a maximum strength level of the composites is achieved, i.e., an ultimate tensile strength of 464 MPa, while the strain to failure amounts to 6.8%. The deformation has been observed for multi-layered composites. In combination with the analysis of the microstructure, this has been correlated to the mechanical properties.
Stress-corrosion interactions in Zr-based bulk metallic glasses
2015, Schwab, Holger, Prashanth, Konda Gokuldoss, Löber, Lukas, Kühn, Uta, Eckert, Jürgen
Stress-corrosion interactions in materials may lead to early unpredictable catastrophic failure of structural parts, which can have dramatic effects. In Zr-based bulk metallic glasses, such interactions are particularly important as these have very high yield strength, limited ductility, and are relatively susceptible to localized corrosion in halide-containing aqueous environments. Relevant features of the mechanical and corrosion behavior of Zr-based bulk metallic glasses are described, and an account of knowledge regarding corrosion-deformation interactions gathered from ex situ experimental procedures is provided. Subsequently the literature on key phenomena including hydrogen damage, stress corrosion cracking, and corrosion fatigue is reviewed. Critical factors for such phenomena will be highlighted. The review also presents an outlook for the topic.
Controlling the Young’s modulus of a ß-type Ti-Nb alloy via strong texturing by LPBF
2022, Pilz, Stefan, Gustmann, Tobias, Günther, Fabian, Zimmermann, Martina, Kühn, Uta, Gebert, Annett
The ß-type Ti-42Nb alloy was processed by laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) with an infrared top hat laser configuration aiming to control the Young’s modulus by creating an adapted crystallographic texture. Utilizing a top hat laser, a microstructure with a strong 〈0 0 1〉 texture parallel to the building direction and highly elongated grains was generated. This microstructure results in a strong anisotropy of the Young’s modulus that was modeled based on the single crystal elastic tensor and the experimental texture data. Tensile tests along selected loading directions were conducted to study the mechanical anisotropy and showed a good correlation with the modeled data. A Young’s modulus as low as 44 GPa was measured parallel to the building direction, which corresponds to a significant reduction of over 30% compared to the Young’s modulus of the Gaussian reference samples (67–69 GPa). At the same time a high 0.2% yield strength of 674 MPa was retained. The results reveal the high potential of LPBF processing utilizing a top hat laser configuration to fabricate patient-specific implants with an adapted low Young’s modulus along the main loading direction and a tailored mechanical biofunctionality.
Selective laser melting of Ti-45Nb alloy
2015, Schwab, Holger, Prashanth, Konda Gokuldoss, Löber, Lukas, Kühn, Uta, Eckert, Jürgen
Ti-45Nb is one of the potential alloys that can be applied for biomedical applications as implants due to its low Young’s modulus. Ti-45Nb (wt.%) gas atomized powders were used to produce bulk samples by selective laser melting with three different parameter sets (energy inputs). A β-phase microstructure consisting of elliptical grains with an enriched edge of titanium was observed by scanning electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction studies. The mechanical properties of these samples were evaluated using hardness and compression tests, which suggested that the strength of the samples increases with increasing energy input within the range considered.
Effect of Selective Laser Melting on Microstructure, Mechanical, and Corrosion Properties of Biodegradable FeMnCS for Implant Applications
2020, Hufenbach, Julia, Sander, Jan, Kochta, Fabian, Pilz, Stefan, Voss, Andrea, Kühn, Uta, Gebert, Annett
Selective laser melting (SLM) of biodegradable metallic materials offers a great potential for manufacturing customized implants. Herein, SLM processing of a novel Fe–30Mn–1C–0.02S twinning-induced plasticity (TWIP) alloy and the resulting structural, mechanical, and corrosion properties are presented. The occurring rapid solidification results in a fine-grained austenitic microstructure with mainly homogeneous element distribution, which is investigated by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) combined with energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX) and electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) as well as X-ray diffraction (XRD). By processing the alloy via SLM, significantly higher strengths under tensile and compressive load in comparison with those for the as-cast counterpart and a 316L reference steel are achieved. Electrochemical corrosion tests in a simulated body fluid (SBF) indicate a moderate corrosion activity, and a beneficial uniform degradation is shown in immersion tests in SBF. Regarding the envisaged application for vascular implants, SLM-processed stent prototypes out of the novel alloy are presented and a first functionality test is shown. © 2020 The Authors. Published by WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim