Abstract
Additive manufacturing (AM) of functional alloys has become a promising area of research for the development of novel devices with complex geometric features that cannot be manufactured using conventional methods. In this work, we investigate the additive manufacturing of Fe[sbnd]3Si and Fe[sbnd]6Si benchtop scale transformer cores. A novel design inspired by a Hilbert curve was developed to exploit the geometric complexity of AM, and cores of each alloy were successfully printed, heat treated, machined, pickled, and assembled. The microstructure and magnetic performance of the cores were characterized and compared to additively manufactured components with simpler square cross-sections as well as to conventionally laminated non-oriented electrical steel sheet. The AM cores showed performance roughly comparable or better than the conventional non-oriented sheet, but higher power losses than Goss oriented steel. The increased Si content of the Fe[sbnd]6Si alloy resulted in a significant reduction in core losses. The transformer cores had higher losses than the similarly manufactured simple cross-sections, which was attributed to defects in fabrication and assembly that resulted in air gaps between the transformer legs. The performance was also rationalized relative to nanoscale carbide and oxide inclusions.
Original language | English |
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Article number | 108894 |
Journal | Materials and Design |
Volume | 194 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Sep 2020 |
Funding
This manuscript has been authored by UT-Battelle, LLC under Contract No. DE-AC05-00OR22725 with the U.S. Department of Energy. Research was co-sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy , Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy , Advanced Manufacturing Office and the Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability (OE) – Transformer Resilience and Advanced Components (TRAC) Program. The United States Government retains and the publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that the United States Government retains a non-exclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, world-wide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this manuscript, or allow others to do so, for United States Government purposes. The Department of Energy will provide public access to these results of federally sponsored research in accordance with the DOE Public Access Plan ( ). The authors would like to acknowledge Niyanth Sridharan, Peeyush Nandwana, and Joseph Simpson for selecting and performing the annealing heat treatments. This manuscript has been authored by UT-Battelle, LLC under Contract No. DE-AC05-00OR22725 with the U.S. Department of Energy. Research was co-sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Advanced Manufacturing Office and the Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability (OE) ? Transformer Resilience and Advanced Components (TRAC) Program. The United States Government retains and the publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that the United States Government retains a non-exclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, world-wide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this manuscript, or allow others to do so, for United States Government purposes. The Department of Energy will provide public access to these results of federally sponsored research in accordance with the DOE Public Access Plan (<http://energy.gov/downloads/doe-public-access-plan>). Data availability, The data required to reproduce these finding will be shared upon request. The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
Keywords
- Additive manufacturing
- Electrical steel
- Fe-Si
- Magnetic properties
- Microstructure