Damage-tolerant metallic composites via melt infiltration of additively manufactured preforms

Alexander E. Pawlowski, Zachary C. Cordero, Matthew R. French, Thomas R. Muth, J. Keith Carver, Ralph B. Dinwiddie, Amelia M. Elliott, Amit Shyam, Derek A. Splitter

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

44 Scopus citations

Abstract

Abstract A356/316L interpenetrating phase composites were fabricated by infiltrating additively manufactured 316L lattices with molten A356. Measurements of the thermal conductivity of the composites showed an inverse rule-of-mixtures dependence on the 316L volume fraction. Compression tests revealed that the stress-strain response of the composites can be tailored by adjusting both the volume fraction and the topology of the 316L reinforcement. Tension tests on composites with 39 vol% 316L showed a strain to failure of 32%, representing an order of magnitude improvement over the strain to failure of monolithic A356. Inspection of the as-tested tensile specimens suggested that this exceptional damage tolerance is a result of the interpenetrating structure of the constituents. These results together demonstrate that this infiltration processing route avoids problems with intermetallic formation, cracking, and poor resolution that limit current fusion-based additive manufacturing techniques for printing metallic composites.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)346-351
Number of pages6
JournalMaterials and Design
Volume127
DOIs
StatePublished - Aug 5 2017

Keywords

  • Additive manufacturing
  • Composites
  • Damage-tolerance
  • Infiltration
  • Microstructure design

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