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Preparation of Alumina Powder-Reinforced High-Strength Salt Cores Produced via 3D Direct Printing for Aluminum Alloy Casting

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Abstract

In this paper, the high-strength water-soluble Na2SO4–NaCl composite salt cores (NNCSC) strengthened by alumina powder using additive manufacturing 3D direct printing (3DP) method were reported, which can be used to manufacture the aluminum alloy castings with hollow-composite structures. The effects of polyvinyl pyrrolidone (PVP) concentration, alumina powder content, and sintering time on the performance of NNCSC were investigated. The microstructure and strengthening mechanism were analyzed and discussed. It was found that NNCSC green body exhibited good formability and bending strength at a PVP concentration of 10 wt%. When the alumina content was 40 wt% and sintered at 628 °C for 20 min, NNCSC possessed excellent comprehensive performance, and the bending strength, open porosity, sintering shrinkage, and water solubility rate were 53.09 MPa, 1.45%, 9.64% and 104.35 g/(min·m2), respectively, wherein the bending strength was increased by 215.6%. Microscopic analysis results showed that the NaCl phase in NNCSC samples was refined with the increase of alumina content, and the phase constitution altered as sintering time increased, resulting in a considerable improvement in the strength properties. Finally, the NNCSC components with slender-complex structures and corresponding aluminum alloy castings were obtained under the optimized process.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 52205361 and 52275334); and the Project was funded by China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (No. 2022M721229).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Materials Processing and Die & Mould Technology, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, 430074, China

    **ongjie **ao, **aolong Gong, Jianwei Zhao & Zitian Fan

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  1. **ongjie **ao
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  2. **aolong Gong
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  3. Jianwei Zhao
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Correspondence to **aolong Gong or Zitian Fan.

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**ao, X., Gong, X., Zhao, J. et al. Preparation of Alumina Powder-Reinforced High-Strength Salt Cores Produced via 3D Direct Printing for Aluminum Alloy Casting. Inter Metalcast (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40962-023-01168-6

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