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The Effects of Heat Treatment on Microstructure and Mechanical Properties of Selective Laser Melting 6061 Aluminum Alloy

Selective laser melting technology can be used for forming curved panels of 6061 aluminum alloy thermal shield devices for the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), in order to make the formed parts with better performance. This study proposes different heat treatment processes, i...

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Autores principales: Liu, Wei, Huang, Shan, Du, Shuangsong, Gao, Ting, Zhang, Zhengbin, Chen, Xuehui, Huang, Lei
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9324477/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35888876
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/mi13071059
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author Liu, Wei
Huang, Shan
Du, Shuangsong
Gao, Ting
Zhang, Zhengbin
Chen, Xuehui
Huang, Lei
author_facet Liu, Wei
Huang, Shan
Du, Shuangsong
Gao, Ting
Zhang, Zhengbin
Chen, Xuehui
Huang, Lei
author_sort Liu, Wei
collection PubMed
description Selective laser melting technology can be used for forming curved panels of 6061 aluminum alloy thermal shield devices for the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), in order to make the formed parts with better performance. This study proposes different heat treatment processes, including annealed treatment at 300 °C for 2 h, solution treatment at 535 °C and then aging at 175 °C over 2 h, to control the mechanical behavior of the 6061 aluminum alloy samples prepared by selective laser melting (SLM). The mechanical properties such as ductility, tensile strength, and hardness of SLM 6061 aluminum alloy were investigated, and the microstructure of the samples was analyzed. The eutectic silicon skeleton shape disappeared after annealing treatment at 300 °C for 2 h. The tensile strength decreased by 22.86% (from 315 MPa to 243 MPa of the deposited state samples), and the elongation increased from 2.01% to 6.89%. Moreover, the hardness reduced from 120.07 HV(0.2) to 89.6 HV(0.2). After solution aging, the unique microstructure of SLM disappeared. Furthermore, the precipitation of massive Si particles on the α-Al matrix increased, and a trace amount of the Mg(2)Si(β) phase was generated. Compared with the deposited samples, the tensile strength decreased by 12.06%, while the hardness of specimens was 118.8 HV(0.2). However, the elongation showed a remarkable increase of 297% (from 2.01% to 7.97%). Therefore, solution aging can critically improve the plasticity without losing significant tensile stress in the SLM 6061 aluminum alloy. This study proposes the use of SLM 6061 aluminum alloy for the thermal shields on the ITER and provides a reference for choosing a reasonable heat-treatment method for the optimal performance of the SLM 6061 aluminum alloy.
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spelling pubmed-93244772022-07-27 The Effects of Heat Treatment on Microstructure and Mechanical Properties of Selective Laser Melting 6061 Aluminum Alloy Liu, Wei Huang, Shan Du, Shuangsong Gao, Ting Zhang, Zhengbin Chen, Xuehui Huang, Lei Micromachines (Basel) Article Selective laser melting technology can be used for forming curved panels of 6061 aluminum alloy thermal shield devices for the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), in order to make the formed parts with better performance. This study proposes different heat treatment processes, including annealed treatment at 300 °C for 2 h, solution treatment at 535 °C and then aging at 175 °C over 2 h, to control the mechanical behavior of the 6061 aluminum alloy samples prepared by selective laser melting (SLM). The mechanical properties such as ductility, tensile strength, and hardness of SLM 6061 aluminum alloy were investigated, and the microstructure of the samples was analyzed. The eutectic silicon skeleton shape disappeared after annealing treatment at 300 °C for 2 h. The tensile strength decreased by 22.86% (from 315 MPa to 243 MPa of the deposited state samples), and the elongation increased from 2.01% to 6.89%. Moreover, the hardness reduced from 120.07 HV(0.2) to 89.6 HV(0.2). After solution aging, the unique microstructure of SLM disappeared. Furthermore, the precipitation of massive Si particles on the α-Al matrix increased, and a trace amount of the Mg(2)Si(β) phase was generated. Compared with the deposited samples, the tensile strength decreased by 12.06%, while the hardness of specimens was 118.8 HV(0.2). However, the elongation showed a remarkable increase of 297% (from 2.01% to 7.97%). Therefore, solution aging can critically improve the plasticity without losing significant tensile stress in the SLM 6061 aluminum alloy. This study proposes the use of SLM 6061 aluminum alloy for the thermal shields on the ITER and provides a reference for choosing a reasonable heat-treatment method for the optimal performance of the SLM 6061 aluminum alloy. MDPI 2022-06-30 /pmc/articles/PMC9324477/ /pubmed/35888876 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/mi13071059 Text en © 2022 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Liu, Wei
Huang, Shan
Du, Shuangsong
Gao, Ting
Zhang, Zhengbin
Chen, Xuehui
Huang, Lei
The Effects of Heat Treatment on Microstructure and Mechanical Properties of Selective Laser Melting 6061 Aluminum Alloy
title The Effects of Heat Treatment on Microstructure and Mechanical Properties of Selective Laser Melting 6061 Aluminum Alloy
title_full The Effects of Heat Treatment on Microstructure and Mechanical Properties of Selective Laser Melting 6061 Aluminum Alloy
title_fullStr The Effects of Heat Treatment on Microstructure and Mechanical Properties of Selective Laser Melting 6061 Aluminum Alloy
title_full_unstemmed The Effects of Heat Treatment on Microstructure and Mechanical Properties of Selective Laser Melting 6061 Aluminum Alloy
title_short The Effects of Heat Treatment on Microstructure and Mechanical Properties of Selective Laser Melting 6061 Aluminum Alloy
title_sort effects of heat treatment on microstructure and mechanical properties of selective laser melting 6061 aluminum alloy
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9324477/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35888876
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/mi13071059
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