In the past ten years, researchers all over the world have made great efforts to explore the possibility of using different emerging AM technologies to manufacture various BMGs, and strive to reveal relationship between the processing technology, microstructure of BMGs prepared by these AM methods. At present, there are still great technical difficulties in the manufacture of metallic glass powder for SLM.
Completely amorphous alloys can already be achieved in the preparation of SLM in some alloy systems, but it is still a challenge due to the low glass forming ability or poor thermal stability of most MG systems. In terms of the HAZ in each layer during SLM, the crystallization problem becomes more serious and more difficult to completely avoid. Since the thermal history of different regions of MG manufactured by SLM (such as molten pool and HAZ) is different, different regions have different crystallization mechanisms. The current research on crystallization mainly relies on finite element simulation and molecular dynamics simulation to understand the crystallization kinetics of the SLM bath during laser irradiation through calculations to help the development and optimization of BMGs.
Although SLM still faces arduous challenges in preparing powders for metallic glass and its own processing technology, the efforts of scholars all over the world have proved that SLM can break through the size limit of bulk metallic glass manufacturing, which is the main limitation of producing BMG through traditional manufacturing methods.
Therefore, the main problems in the preparation of bulk metallic glass by SLM technology include: the quality of amorphous powder, crystallization of heat-affected zone, various forming defects and so on. Where should we take active research strategies to improve the above situation?
In our previous work, we have studied in detail the laser additive manufacturing Fe-based metallic glass. For example, we studied the crystal phase competition behavior of Fe-based metallic glass, and the stability of the molten pool. Meanwhile, the effect of annealing on Fe-based metals, and the composition design principle of Fe-based BMG were studied. The influence of the magnetic field on the forming of iron-based metallic glass has also been studied. These researches have laid a foundation for further research on laser additive manufacturing of Fe-based BMG.
Dear Peilei, thank you for initiating this interesting discussion of practical importance. According to the recently published article cited below, future research in the area of manufacturing bulk metallic glasses through selective laser melting should be directed towards improving the mechanical, physical and chemical properties of BMGs. Of particular interest are new functional applications such as catalytic performance and biocompatibility. In this context please have a look at the following article:
A review of bulk metallic glasses by selective laser melting
(please see the attached pdf article)
Thank you very much for your careful discussion and suggestions. Indeed, at present, the main research methods for the changes of metallic glass in the SLM process still rely on the material analysis and numerical simulation analysis in the finished state, and the in-situ detection method is rarely used for analysis, which is probably caused by the excessively expensive cost of this method and the lack of equipment. In the future research, I predict that in addition to the continuous application of new metal-glass materials in SLM research, there will also be new breakthroughs in detection and analysis methods.@Steven Van Petegem
Our team recently published a paper on a comprehensive review of the SLM technology for the preparation of bulk metallic glasses. This review summarizes the technical difficulty and application prospects of BMGs preparation by SLM and discusses the challenges and unresolved problems. This review identifies key issues that need to be addressed in this important field in the future. These problems are related to the application of BMGs as high-strength structural materials and new functional materials in the future. It should be noted that this article is open access and is free for anyone to download and read. The link for the article on Researchgate is Article Research progress on selective laser melting (SLM) of bulk m...
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