Mechanical properties of thin wall specimens produced by additive manufacturing methods

添加制造(AM)技术涉及使用激光或电子束在选定材料的粉末层中熔化特定位置的组件，然后将其固化为组件的一层；然后逐层构建三维(3D)组件。这些粉末的颗粒直径在几十微米的范围内，这意味着每一层的厚度也在几十微米量级。此外，AM是一种环保技术，因为它最大限度地减少了材料浪费，并能够将许多不同的部件组合成一个复杂的部件；这简化了组装并减少了需要存储的备件数量。然而，一个复杂的零件会包含非常不同的厚度，其中一个问题是，对于相同的AM加工条件，部件的性能将随着截面厚度的变化而强烈变化。我们正在解决的具体问题是确定粉末‘特性’(例如，尺寸、形状)和加工条件(例如，束流类型、熔化功率)对1.0 mm厚度范围内的添加制造粉末床熔化(AM-PBF)打印试件的机械性能的影响。这些具有所需机械性能的所谓“薄壁”试件的成功印刷将极大地增加AM在工业中的应用。为了实现这一目标，这项研究得到了AP&C非常强大的行业支持，AP&C是一家金属粉末公司，一直在与AM设备供应商和制造公司制定非常强大的AM战略。这项研究将由麦吉尔大学的学术研究人员进行，该大学将培训开发AM所需的先进技术人力这项工作将由自2007年开始参与AM研究的Stephen Yue教授和AP&C高级材料项目经理Jille Arreguin Zavala博士领导，他负责特殊项目的开发。

Additive manufacturing (AM) technology involves printing a component using a laser or electron beam to melt specific locations in a 'bed' of powder of the material of choice, which then solidifies into a layer of the component; the three dimensional (3D) component is then built up layer by layer. The powders have particle diameters in the size range of tens of microns, which means the thickness of each layer is also of the order of tens of microns. In addition, AM is an environmentally friendly technology because it minimizes materials wastage and has the ability to combine a lot of different components into one complex part; this simplifies assembly and reduces the number of spare parts that need to be stored. However, a complex part will incorporate wildly different thicknesses and one of the problems will be that, for the same AM processing conditions, the properties of a component will vary strongly with section thicknesses. The specific problem we are tackling is to determine the influence of powder 'characteristics' (e.g. size, shape) and processing conditions (e.g. beam type, melting power) on the mechanical properties of additive manufacturing powder bed fusion (AM-PBF) printed specimens in the range of 1.0 mm thick. The success of printing these so-called 'thin wall' specimens with desired mechanical properties will massively increase the incorporation of AM in industry. In order to achieve this goal, this research boasts very strong industrial support from AP &C, a metal powder company that has been developing a very strong AM strategy with AM equipment suppliers and manufacturing companies. The research will be performed by academic researchers at McGill University, which will train the technologically advanced manpower required to exploit AM. This work will be led by Professor Stephen Yue, who has been involved in AM research since 2007, and Dr. Javier Arreguin Zavala, who is the senior material project manager in AP&C and in charge of the development of special projects.