Laser Single Scan Tracks of New Aluminium Alloys Compositions

Laser Powder Bed Fusion (LPBF) is an Additive Manufacturing (AM) process that allows the production of fully dense near net shape metal components using 3D CAD data as digital information. Despite the strong interest in this innovative technology, nowadays, only a few alloys can be processed by LPBF processes. There is therefore a strong interest in the development of new alloys especially designed for AM. In the present study the microstructure and the mechanical properties of three new aluminium alloys were investigated by means of laser single scan tracks experiments. In particular the new compositions were obtained by adding copper and silver to an AlSi10Mg powder and using a Al-Er pre-alloyed powder. The geometrical features and the microstructure of the scans were investigated and compared with the AlSi10Mg ones.