Wear Behavior of a Heat-Treatable Al-3.5Cu-1.5Mg-1Si Alloy Manufactured by Selective Laser Melting

Pei Wang; Yang Lei; Jun-Fang Qi; Si-Jie Yu; Rossitza Setchi; Ming-Wei Wu; Jürgen Eckert; Hai-Chao Li; Sergio Scudino

doi:10.3390/ma14227048

Wear Behavior of a Heat-Treatable Al-3.5Cu-1.5Mg-1Si Alloy Manufactured by Selective Laser Melting

Materials (Basel). 2021 Nov 20;14(22):7048. doi: 10.3390/ma14227048.

Authors

Pei Wang^{1

2}, Yang Lei¹, Jun-Fang Qi¹, Si-Jie Yu¹, Rossitza Setchi³, Ming-Wei Wu⁴, Jürgen Eckert^{5

6}, Hai-Chao Li⁷, Sergio Scudino²

Affiliations

¹ Additive Manufacturing Institute, College of Mechatronics and Control Engineering, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen 518060, China.
² Institute for Complex Materials, Leibniz IFW Dresden, Helmholtzstraße 20, 01069 Dresden, Germany.
³ Cardiff School of Engineering, Cardiff University, Cardiff CF24 3AA, UK.
⁴ Department of Materials and Mineral Resources Engineering, National Taipei University of Technology, No. 1, Sec. 3, Zhong-Xiao E. Rd., Taipei 10608, Taiwan.
⁵ Erich Schmid Institute of Materials Science, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Jahnstraße 12, A-8700 Leoben, Austria.
⁶ Department of Materials Science, Chair of Materials Physics, Montanuniversität Leoben, Jahnstraße 12, A-8700 Leoben, Austria.
⁷ School of Materials Engineering, Shanghai University of Engineering Science, Shanghai 201620, China.

Abstract

In this study, the wear behavior of a heat-treatable Al-7Si-0.5Mg-0.5Cu alloy fabricated by selective laser melting was investigated systematically. Compared with the commercial homogenized AA2024 alloy, the fine secondary phase of the SLM Al-Cu-Mg-Si alloy leads to a low specific wear rate (1.8 ± 0.11 × 10^-4 mm³(Nm)^-1) and a low average coefficient of friction (0.40 ± 0.01). After the T6 heat treatment, the SLM Al-Cu-Mg-Si alloy exhibits a lower specific wear rate (1.48 ± 0.02 × 10^-4 mm³(Nm)^-1), but a similar average coefficient of friction (0.34 ± 0.01) as the heat-treated AA2024 alloy. Altogether, the SLM Al-3.5Cu-1.5Mg-1Si alloy is suitable for the achievement of not only superior mechanical performance, but also improved tribological properties.

Keywords: Al-Si-Cu-Mg alloy; heat treatment; microstructure; selective laser melting; wear behavior.