4D printing of shape-memory alloy parts via in-situ alloying

Introduction
Printing of shape-memory alloys (SMA), also referred to as smart materials that can
change the shape over time using external stimuli like temperature, and magnetic energy is
called 4D printing [Joshi et al. 2019]. Nitinol (50%Ni - 50%Ti) is the most commonly used
shape memory alloy (SMA) and finds numerous applications in the bio-medical, robotic,
defence, and transportation industries. The applications include implants, sensors, robotic-
micromanipulators, and couplings in the respective fields [Yu et al. 2021] due to the ability to
recover a large inelastic strain upon heating or upon unloading from the pre-deformed shape
[Resnina et al. 2021]. However, the manufacturing of parts with complex shapes with these
alloys is restricted in a conventional route owing to the critical combination of strength,
ductility, and strain hardening [Wang et al. 2019]. As a result, conventionally fabricated
components typically have simple geometries, such as wires, plates, and bars. This is currently
restricting the use of nitinol in end-applications [Pu et al. 2021]. Though additive
manufacturing (AM) is relatively evolved to print nitinol from the respective nitinol feedstock
alloy powders/wires, the exorbitantly higher cost and formation of unwanted precipitate during
the manufacturing of these feedstocks is restricting the printing [Han et al. 2022].
Wire arc additive manufacturing (WAAM) is a typical AM technique that uses an
electric arc as a heat source for 3D printing of metals and alloys. A few researchers have
attempted to print nitinol alloy using readily available NiTi feedstock wire by employing a gas
metal arc (GMA) based power source [Resnina et al. 2022, Liu et al. 2022 and Zhang et al.
2022]. It was reported that a significant amount of Ni has evaporated in the metal prints due to
the higher heat inputs involved with GMA, which led to the formation of Ti-enriched
precipitates. This substantially affected the shape memory effect and drastically degraded the
mechanical properties. The inherently high heat input and unfavourable thermal cycles also led
to the heterogeneous grain morphology, and multiply the residual stresses and distortion
[Ponikarova et al. 2021]. Therefore, it is clear that the regular GMA-assisted WAAM is not
favourable for printing smart metals such as nitinol for end applications.
The recent advancements in TIG-assisted WAAM have simplified the problem of
producing such alloys through in-situ alloying that allows 3D printing of NiTi alloy parts in
any desired shape [Han et al. 2022]. The authors have attempted to print nitinol through in-situ
alloying, in which commercially pure Ni and Ti filler wires are melted, and the molten alloy
mix is deposited to create NiTi alloys with the required composition. Simultaneous alloying
and printing of such smart components using the WAAM process is more economical when
compared to that of the other allied additive manufacturing techniques [Wang et al. 2020].
Similar studies in this direction could also lead to improvements in the quality, process
efficiency, printing speed, and mechanical properties of NiTi prints but such studies are rarely
reported in the current literature. A well-optimized and streamlined set-up like this could
potentially enhance the preparation of other similar marco alloyed 3D prints for a wide range
of engineering applications that require functionally graded materials and gradient
microstructures.
Motivation
A precise chemical composition is must to achieve the shape memory effect. However,
when it comes to the end applications, maintaining such a strict composition is difficult and
more expensive both in terms of material making and manufacturing [Wang et al. 2019]. As a
result, the use of these alloys in routine applications is rare. A few recent studies also stressed
that the metal prints that were produced from the high-grade powders/wire feedstocks also
could not help the degradation of the shape memory effect even under the optimized process
conditions [Li et al. 2022]. Therefore, it is clear that the existing conventional metal printing
techniques are in-capable to meet such tight requirements. To simplify this problem, we have
come up with a well thought in-expensive in-house setup as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1 Hybrid gas tungsten arc-based wire arc additive manufacturing setup

The gas tungsten arc welding is proposed as a heat source for its lower heat inputs,
which drastically reduces the evaporation of Ni from the molten pool that has a lower melting
point. The setup has two wire feeders to feed the pure form of Ti and Ni wires as shown in
Fig. 1. A Ti wire feeder is assisted by the joule heater to supply the hot wire for the printing
[Fig. 1]. The hot wire reduces the heat requirement from the welding torch, which would
benefit Ni wire from evaporation. This also results in reduced residual stresses, distortion and
an-isotropy. To reduce the anisotropic properties in the metal print, various grain refinement
techniques such as arc oscillation, ultrasonic vibration, and magnetic pulse oscillation can also
be used, which are well-established techniques in welding but rarely attempted in wire arc
additive manufacturing.

Objectives
1. To develop an in-house in-situ alloying setup to print NiTi components for wide
applications such as sensors, implants, robotic-micromanipulators, and couplings.
2. To examine the impact of various in-expensive grain refinement mechanisms such as
arc oscillation, ultrasonic vibration, and magnetic pulse oscillation towards achieving
the fine-grained microstructures.
3. To compare and analyze the microstructure and mechanical properties of the prints that
resulted from the in-situ alloy printing and conventional WAAM printing.
 4. To further explore the use of printing other similar macro alloys and functionally graded
materials for a variety of engineering applications.

Timeline The timeline for the proposed scheme of research work is provided in Table 1

Table 1 The tentative timeline for the project is given below

S.No Action plans Duration in months

0-6 7-12 13-18 19-24 25-30 31-36 37-42 43-48

1 Development of an in-house
in-situ alloying setup using the
welding power source

2 Printing of NiTi alloy parts by

through the respective Ni and
Ti wires by in-situ alloying

3 Printing of NiTi specimens

with the readily available NiTi
feedstock wire for comparison

4 Filing a patent

5 Publication of results

6 Thesis writing

References
Joshi, S., Rawat, K., Karunakaran, C., et al. (2020). Applied Materials Today, 18, 100490.
Han, J., Chen, X., Zhang, et al. (2022). J. Mater. Process. Technol., 117631.
Li, B., Wang, L., Wang, B., et al. (2021). Additive Manufacturing, 48, 102468.
Liu, G., Zhou, S., Lin, P., et al. (2022). J. Mater. Res. Technol., 20, 246-259.
Ponikarova, I., Palani, I. A., Liulchak, P., et al. (2021). J. Manuf. Proces, 70, 132-139.
Pu, Z., Du, D., Wang, K., et al. (2022). Additive Manufacturing, 102886.
Resnina, N., Palani, I.A., Belyaev, S., et al. (2021). J. Alloys and Compd, 851, 156851.
Resnina, N., Palani, I.A., Belyaev, S., et al. (2022). Shape Memory and Superelasticity, 8,5-15
Wang, C., X. P. Tan, Z. Du, S., et al. (2019). J. Mater. Process. Technol. 271, 152-161.
Wang, J., Pan, Z., Wang, Y., et al. (2020). Additive Manufacturing, 34, 101240.
Yu, L., Chen, K., Zhang, Y., et al. (2022). J. Alloys Compd, 892, 162193.
Zhang, M., Duan, Y., Fang, X., et al. (2022). Materials & Design, 224, 111311.