The role of <i>in-situ</i> nano-TiB<sub>2</sub> particles in improving the printability of noncastable 2024Al alloy
Tengteng Sun, Hongze Wang, Hongze Wang, Zhenyang Gao, Yi Wu, Mingliang Wang, Xinyuan Jin, Chu Lun Alex Leung, Peter Lee, Yanan Fu, Haowei Wang, Haowei Wang
Abstract
In-situ pre-decorated different content of TiB2 particle reinforced 2024 Al matrix composites (xTiB2/2024Al composite, x = 0, 1, 2, 4, 6, 8 wt.%) were printed by laser powder bed fusion (LPBF). A quantitative equation was established to quantify heterogeneous nucleating potency by TiB2 nanoparticles on the grain size of the LPBFed samples. Optimized mechanical properties were obtained in the as-printed 4TiB2/2024Al alloy which proved the feasibility of replacing the wrought part with the LPBFed one. This manuscript provides a method to determine the optimized content of TiB2 nanoparticles to change the noncastable material to the printable one.