WAAM technology pilots to discover Aluminium’s unique ductile properties: St. Petersburg Polytechnic University, Russia

The researchers from Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University (SPbPU) developed metal with unique ductility during experimenting on high-performance Wire Arc Additive Manufacturing (WAAM). However, the outcome of the research made it clear that the ductility is three times higher than specified in the standard.

The growth of WAAM productivity steered to the discovery of the unique properties of aluminium. Elongation of specimens during tensile tests of produced metal increased from 12% to 41% compared to its standard properties for the same chemical composition. This denotes that the material will be able to execute prolong with the same loading conditions. The developed WAAM technology with higher process rates helps to achieve better material performance.

Oleg Panchenko, Head of the Laboratory of Lightweight Materials and Structures SPbPU, said: “In fact, this discovery can change the way of the design of the components since now we can print high-scale metal objects with triple loading capacity. Mechanical properties of the metal are always considered with a margin; in our case, this margin is several times higher than the specified in the standard. This technology could be interesting for many industries, for example for the Aerospace sector where we have a partner – S7 R&D Centre. The manufactured material will be able to withstand deformations caused by the load in space for a longer time.”

The solidification rate increase of metal has conducted to an enhancement in the ductile properties of aluminium. It was attained by an increase of build rate up to 2.2 kg/h. Due to the lack of special equipment for 3D printing (WAAM) in the market initially, the functional goal of the research was to increase productivity. Although the researchers plan to increase the solidification rate even more in future.

“This will help to trace the dependence of material properties on additive manufacturing build rate. We have discovered a way to achieve unique properties and we are willing to move this border of knowledge further”, says Oleg Panchenko.

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