Recent progress and perspectives in additive manufacturing of magnesium alloys
Zhuoran Zeng, Mojtaba Salehi, Alexander Kopp, Shiwei Xu, Marco Esmaily, N. Birbilis
Abstract
Magnesium alloys remain critical in the context of light-weighting and advanced devices. The increased utilisation of magnesium (Mg) each year reveals growing demand for its Mg-based alloys. Additive manufacturing (AM) provides the possibility to directly manufacture components in net-shape, providing new possibilities and applications for the use of Mg-alloys, and new prospects in the utilisation of novel physical structures made possible from ‘3D printing’. The review herein seeks to holistically explore the additive manufacturing of Mg-alloys to date, including a synopsis of processes used and properties measured (with a comparison to conventionally prepared Mg-alloys). The challenges and possibilities of AM Mg-alloys are critically elaborated for the field of mechanical metallurgy.