Selective Laser Melting of Al6061 Alloy: Processing, Microstructure, and Mechanical Properties

Selective laser melting (SLM) is considered as one of the most promising additive manufacturing (AM) technologies. Aluminum alloy is of wide application potentiality due to their high specific strength and heat resistance. In this study, Al6061 alloy was prepared via selective laser melting (SLM) and densification, microstructure and properties were investigated systematically. It was found that process parameters including laser power and scanning rate have a great effect on the forming quality and the porosity of the samples. The α-Al phase is observed in XRD results and (200) is the preferable orientations of α-Al crystal in the SLM process. The microstructure can be divided into three areas: fine grained area, coarse grained area and heat affected area. As for the nanohardness, with the increase of laser power, the elastic modulus and hardness of SLM aluminum alloy show the trend of increasing first and then decreasing, and with the increase of scanning speed, the hardness of SLMed aluminum alloy is gradually reduced. With the increasing laser power and decreasing scanning rate, the elastic modulus and hardness of the samples increased first and then decreased.Mechanical Engineerin