Solid-state additive manufacturing high performance aluminum alloy 6061 enabled by an in-situ micro-forging assisted cold spray

Cold spraying is a competitive additive manufacturing method featuring several unique characteristics and allows large-scale production of metallic components from a wide range of materials. In literature, high performance cold sprayed aluminum deposits produced using high-cost helium gas have been qualified for various applications. In this study, high performance aluminum alloy 6061 (AA6061) deposits were produced through a cold spray method using low-cost nitrogen gas enabled by an in-situ micro-forging effect (IvM-CS). Results show that the MF-CS AA6061 deposit presents very low porosity as well as high ultimate tensile strength (UTS) and elastic modulus (E). Moreover, the MP-CS AA6061 deposit consists of superior equiaxed submicron fine Al grains with random orientations. However, the severe work hardening induced by intensive particle plastic deformation during deposition leads to very low ductility of the MF-CS AA6061 deposit. To eliminate this limitation, three strategies of heat treatments (stress relieving, recrystallization annealing and T6) were performed to the MF-CS AA6061 deposit. It was found that heat treatment generated complex effects on both inter-particle bonding and inner-particle microstructure (grain size, dislocation density and precipitation) and different strategies lead to different mechanical properties of AA6061 deposits. Among them, T6 heat-treated AA6061 deposits give the best overall mechanical properties with comparable UTS and E and only slightly inferior ductility to the corresponding T6 bulk.