Wire and Arc Additive Manufacturing with TiC-Nanoparticle Reinforced AA5183 Alloy

Abstract

Wire and arc additive manufacturing of aluminium-ceramic composites shows great potential to produce high strength materials. By incorporation of nanoparticles in the feedstock wire, fine-grained material with low susceptibility for solidification cracking and enhanced strength can be obtained. In fact, this study utilised the novel screw extrusion method to prepare an aluminium alloy containing TiC nanoparticles. The commercial aluminium alloy AA5183 was selected for WAAM to assess and benchmark the effects of screw extrusion and TiC. The materials have been assessed in terms of microstructure, porosity content and mechanical properties. The presence of TiC reduced the average grain diameter by 70%, while Vickers hardness increased with 13%. However, number of pores per unit volume increased by one order of magnitude. The porosity is believed to stem from hydrogen introduced in the AA5183-material through screw extrusion processing, in addition to hydrogen trapping and pore nucleation on TiC nanoparticles.