Challenges and proposed solutions for aluminium in laser powder bed fusion

Abstract

There is a growing interest for additive manufacturing of aluminium in the industry due to its favourable properties. There are, however, many challenges regarding selective laser melting of aluminium alloy powder that must be solved to make additive manufactured aluminium parts more reliable. Among the most highlighted issues are oxidation, high reflectivity and low laser absorption of the powder. In this paper, a brief literature review is conducted to analyse issues related to the named challenges and how these issues can be addressed. As the result, solutions and gaps for porosity, cracks, uneven grain growth and shrinkage effect for laser powder bed fusion of aluminium alloys are identified and presented. Cracking is found to be the most investigated issue among all presented, while shrinkage effect is not addressed in the current state-of-the-art.