The demand for high-performance materials in Additive Manufacturing (AM), which is the process of joining materials to make parts from 3D model data, has led to the exploration of next generation aluminum alloys engineered to meet specific requirements including enhanced strength, durability, and resistance to extreme operational conditions.
Custom aluminum alloys for AM applications are critical for several reasons. Aluminum alloys offer an excellent strength-to-weight ratio, making them ideal for applications in industrial sectors where weight reduction is a must such as aviation, space-tech and automotive, among others. These materials can also stand relatively high temperatures, exhibit an excellent corrosion resistance or superior fatigue behavior.
Real-life applications vary greatly from lightweight components in space technology, next-generation heat exchangers for the aerospace, energy and automotive sectors, to heat-resistant components for use in motorsport and defense.
But the journey from the alloy discovery to the industrial deployment can be challenging and full of obstacles.
The Valley of Death
In the Technology Readiness Levels (TRLs), which is the scale used to assess the maturity of a particular technology in nine different stages of development, the fourth, fifth and sixth steps of development can often be perceived as the “Valley of Death” because these are the stages where many innovative technologies fail to transition from lab to market due to research challenges, lack of funding resources, and market readiness.
With the example of AMALLOY3D – a novel class of aluminum alloys developed for AM applications - we demonstrate how a new technology can cross Valley of Death and continue its journey towards industrial landscapes.
The Technology Innovation Institute (TII), a global scientific research center and the applied research pillar of Abu Dhabi’s Advanced Technology Research Council, announced the AMALLOY3D project in late 2023.
The initial concept of AMALLOY3D was to design a high strength aluminum alloy that would be used for Powder Bed Fusion – Laser Beam (PBF-LB), a powder-based AM technology, , providing an improved cracking sensitivity and excellent printability paired with an enhanced strength and performance in room temperature environments. Afterwards, the need for high temperature (HT) properties up to 300 C, led the team of researchers to the development of AMALLOY3D sister’s alloy named AMALLOY3D-HT.
The benefits that this new class of alloys brings are numerous. They have high strength, they are lightweight, and most important for today’s market, they are low-cost because they were designed without the use of any rare and costly elements, making them accessible to everyone.
The technical development journey across the TRL’s scale of such products was rich in challenges greatly tackled by the Additive Manufacturing team in TII. From fine tuning the chemical formulation of the alloys at the design stage, to creating in-house the first batch of spherical powders using ultrasonic atomization and, eventually, processing them in the 3D printer to manufacture fully dense parts!
Thanks to a fruitful network with other academic institutions and relevant industries in the AM field, AMALLOY3D has already reached step 6 of Technology Readiness Level, or TRL-6, which means that the system model, or prototype, has been demonstrated in a relevant operating environment. Concretely, it signifies that a dedicated team of powder specialists produced the alloy in an industrial facility using the gas atomization technology and, subsequently, tested the powder in dedicated labs to establish a material safety data sheet.
What’s next?
The next step for AMALLOY3D is to conduct a comprehensive printability testing in several commercial AM machines from the major vendors in the AM market as well as expanding the AMALLOY3D’s data set with the exploration of new properties and custom heat-treatments solutions and, eventually, deploying this new class of aluminum alloys in various high-tech industries.
Today, AMALLOY3D is the first low-cost, high-strength aluminum alloy wholly designed and developed by a team of researchers in the United Arab Emirates. Watch out for this space to be constantly updated on this fascinating journey into alloy design, innovative development and industrialization of TII’s custom aluminum alloys for AM applications!