Materials and Design 168 (2019) 107668

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Materials and Design

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/matdes

Effect of aging treatment on the microstructure and mechanical

properties of Al-3.02Mg-0.2Sc-0.1Zr alloy printed by selective
laser melting
Ruidi Li a,⁎, Hui Chen a, Hongbin Zhu b,⁎, Minbo Wang a, Chao Chen a, Tiechui Yuan a
a
State Key Laboratory of Powder Metallurgy, Central South University, Changsha 410083, PR China
b
CRRC Institute, Beijing 100070, PR China

H I G H L I G H T S G R A P H I C A L A B S T R A C T

• The strength and ductility trade-off of

the alloy can be tailored by regulating
aging parameters.
• The diffraction peaks show the second-
ary peak of Al3(Sc,Zr) after aging treat-
ment owing to the precipitation
particles.
• The segregation of Al3(Sc,Zr) particles
on grains boundaries was characterized.

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Additive manufacturing Al-Mg-Sc-Zr alloys offer significant advantages for lightweight application with complex
Received 5 December 2018 shapes. The paper systematically investigated the effects of aging treatment on microstructural evolution and
Received in revised form 24 January 2019 mechanical properties of SLM printed Al-3.02Mg-0.2Sc-0.1Zr alloy. The SLM printed sample with a relative den-
Accepted 18 February 2019
sity of 99.2% was achieved at an optimal laser parameters. After aging, the hardness was improved from initial
Available online xxxx
85 HV of as-printed sample to 120 HV. The strength and ductility trade-off of the printed sample can be tailored
Keywords:
by regulating aging parameters; the maximal tensile strength of 400 MPa and yield strength of 327 MPa can be
Selective laser melting obtained at an optimal aging parameters. The XRD patterns show the secondary peak of Al3(Sc,Zr) after aging
Aging treatment treatment due to Al3(Sc,Zr) particles separation from the α-Al matrix and the diffraction angles shifts to a higher
Al-Mg-Sc-Zr alloy value owing to the release of residual stress. Moreover, Nano-sized Al3(Sc,Zr) precipitates on the grains bound-
Mechanical properties aries hamper grain growth, which was responsible for the grain sizes maintaining after aging treatment.
© 2019 Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://
creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

1. Introduction

Owing to the excellent characteristics of low density, high specific

⁎ Corresponding authors. strength and corrosion resistance, Al-alloys are suitable candidates in
E-mail addresses: liruidi@csu.edu.cn (R. Li), zhuhongbin@crrcgc.cc (H. Zhu). lightweight and functionally optimized parts, such as in automotive

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matdes.2019.107668
0264-1275/© 2019 Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
2 R. Li et al. / Materials and Design 168 (2019) 107668
industries and aerospace sectors applications [1,2]. Thus, Al alloy com-
ponents with flexible geometry structures and high mechanical perfor-
mance are strongly demanded in weight reduction. Conventionally, Al-
alloys were produced by smelting-casting or plastic deformation
methods, which are not suitable for building metallic parts with com-
plex shapes [3]. Additive manufacturing (AM) has attracted more and
more attention in complex shapes, reducing wasted materials, saving
leading-time and geometry optimization [4–9], which holds great po-
tential in lightweight application for Al-alloys [10–12]. Selective laser
melting (SLM), as a powder bed based AM technology, is an effective
route to build precision components with complex shapes and high per-
formances. However, SLM of conventional Al-alloys, such as 2000 [13],
6000 [14], 7000 [15] series alloys accompanies hot-cracks and low me-
chanical properties, showing poor processability and printability. At
present, most literatures about SLM Al-alloys are mainly focused on
Al\\Si series alloys such as Al\\12Si [3,16], and Al10SiMg [17,18],
owing to their narrow solidification ranges and satisfactory weldability
in eutectic composition. As reported in recent literatures, the SLM
AlSi10Mg alloy [19] showed a fine cellular microstructure, the fa-
tigue resistance increases and the microstructure becomes homoge-
neously by the combination of platform heating and peak-hardening.
Li et al. investigated the effects of heat treatment on the microstruc-
ture evolution and mechanical properties of SLM of AlSi10Mg alloy,
the tensile strength and fracture strain changed from 434 MPa and
5.3% to 168 MPa and 23.7% after solution-treated at 550 °C for 2 h
[20]. It is also noted that the post-treatment could be an effective
method for regulating mechanical properties in the present study
of other alloys fabricated by SLM due to the formation of fine precip-
itates [21,22].
A new generation of SLM-printable Sc and Zr modified Al\\Mg alloys
are now attracting widespread concerns in Al-alloys lightweight by AM,
owing to its superior mechanical properties than other SLM printed Al-
alloys, since Airbus reported their patented production of Scalmalloy®
alloy [23,24]. This alloy offers high strength (520 MPa) and ductility
(12%) after heat treatment of as-printed part, as well as low anisotropic
mechanical behavior as reported by Schmidke [25] and Spierings [26].
The strengthening mechanism of Al-alloys with Sc, Zr additions is as-
cribed to grain refinement and precipitation strengthening from nano-
scaled Al3(Sc,Zr) particles [24]. Schmidtke et al. investigated laser addi-
tive manufacturing of Al-4.5Mg-0.66Sc-0.37Zr alloy and obtained a suit-
able aging treatment temperature 325 °C for 4 h [25]. Spierings et al.
reported that Al-4.6Mg-0.66Sc-0.42Zr alloy printed by SLM showed
high tensile strength exceeding 520 MPa through aging treatment at
temperatures ranging from 325 to 350 °C and aging duration 4–10 h
[26]. Although Scalmalloy® alloy possess excellent mechanical proper-
ties, the high content of Sc (0.66%) in Scalmalloy® causes high cost.
On the other hand, although the high Sc content yields high tensile
strength of Scalmalloy® alloy, the ductility is still needed to be im-
proved. The strengthening mechanism of SLM printed Al-Mg-Sc-Zr
alloy is depended on fine-grained strengthening combined with pre-
cipitation strengthening, which highly correlate with Sc and Zr con-
tents. Therefore, SLM of Al\\Mg alloys containing low Sc and Zr
contents not only reduces cost, but also yields a better strength and
ductility trade-off. In addition, the supersaturated solid solution
formed by rapid solidification during SLM provides the precipitation
of Al3(Sc,Zr) particles in subsequent aging treatment. In this paper,
the Al-3.02Mg-0.2Sc-0.1Zr alloy powder was prepared and proc-
essed by SLM with the emphasis on effect of aging treatment on mi-
crostructure and property.
2. Experimental procedure
2.1. Materials fabrication
The alloy powder in present work was prepared by gas atomization
in argon atmosphere. The main chemical compositions of the alloy
Table 1
The chemical composition of the alloy determined by ICP-AES (wt%).
Elements Mg Sc Zr Fe Si Al
Powder 3.91 0.31 0.08 0.014 0.011 Balance
SLM samples 3.02 0.20 0.11 0.026 0.016 Balance
powder and SLM samples were determined by inductively coupled
plasma atomic emission spectrometry (ICP-AES), as listed in Table 1.
Fig. 1a revealed the powder particles were in spherical shape, contain-
ing some satellites ball. The size distribution of the original powder
was in the range of 11–63 μm and average particle size was about 28
μm (Fig. 1b), which was measured by laser particle size analyzer
(Matersizer). The SLM process was conducted in a FS271 machine
equipped with Gaussian beam fiber laser (maximal power, 500 W;
laser beam diameter, 100 μm). A range of samples were fabricated for
the experiment in protective atmosphere to avoid the oxidation. Differ-
ent processing parameters of SLM for two group samples were set as fol-
lows: laser power (P) 200–400 W, scan speed (v) 300–1200 mm/s,
hatch spacing (h) 0.1 mm and layer thickness (t) 0.05 mm. The laser
scanning strategy was used 67° rotating scanning between layer and
layer (Fig. 1c). Before the SLM process, the Al substrate as the build plat-
form was preheated to 100 °C. The real density was measured by cubic
samples with dimension of 10 × 10 × 10 mm3. The optimal printed pa-
rameters were determined via the relative density of samples. Three
sets of laser powers were set for the samples of microhardness test.
The mechanical properties were evaluated by standard tensile speci-
men with optimal SLM parameters. The effects of aging treatments
on mechanical properties and microstructure of the SLM samples
under the optimal laser parameters were investigated. In order to
study the effect of aging treatment temperature and duration on
the microstructure and properties of SLM sample, aging treatment
temperatures ranging from 250 to 450 °C were applied with fixed
duration 4 h, and holding time ranging from 0 to 20 h was applied
at constant temperatures of 275 °C, 325 °C and 375 °C using a muffle
furnace and cooled air.
2.2. Microstructural characterization
The Archimedes method was used to calculate the relative density of
SLM printed samples. The porosity level on polished surfaces of typical
sets of laser parameters was observed using Leica DM4000M optical mi-
croscope (OM). X-rays diffraction (XRD) patterns of the original powder
and printed samples were measured using a D/max2500pc with Cu-Ka
radiation (K = 0.154 nm) at room temperature. A scan rate 5°/min and
the 2θ angle range from 20° to 80° were applied for phase identification.
The samples for OM and XRD test were mechanically grinding from
coarse to fine sandpaper and subsequently polished using 0.35 μm silica
colloidal. The electron backscattered diffraction (EBSD) was applied to
characterize the crystallographic orientation of the samples, which
was made using a Quanta 250 FEG field-emission scanning electron mi-
croscope (FE-SEM) under an accelerating voltage of 18 kV. The samples
preparation for EBSD was using electrolytic double spray thinning
(Tenupol-5, DNK). The transmission electron microscopy (TEM) test
was performed on a Tecnai G2 field-emission TEM (FE-TEM) operating
at 200 kV, equipped with high-resolution transmission electron micros-
copy (HRTEM) and selected area electron diffraction (SAED) apparatus.
Thin foils thickness of 30 μm was punched into a 3 mm diameter disk
and ion milling was then applied on the sample (Gatan 691) for TEM
analysis. Tensile properties tests were performed by MST Alliance RT
(MTS systems, Eden Prairie, MN, USA) with a constant speed of
1.00 mm/min at room temperature. The microhardness tests were
using micro-vickers hardness machines (ASTME 384-08) with load
100 g for 15 s.
 R. Li et al. / Materials and Design 168 (2019) 107668 3

Fig. 1. (a) SEM image shows morphology of the powder. (b) The powder size distribution. (c) Schematic diagram of scanning strategy.

3. Results
3.1. Optimization of SLM process parameter
Fig. 2 shows that the relative density of SLM processed samples
changes with the applied laser power and scan speed, with embedded
optical micrographs of vertical section of three representative samples.
The relative densities of the samples increase with the laser power at
fixed scan speed, but it slightly drops with the increasing scan speed
at fixed laser power, Three representative SLM samples printed by dif-
ferent laser parameters were selected to characterize the porosity
level by optical micrographs. The micropores are irregularly shaped
and in a comparatively larger number on the polished sections at laser
power 200 W, scan speed 800 mm/s; the pore formation is due to insuf-
ficient melting of powder and low flowability at lower energy input. The
micropores become nearly spherical and decline in the numbers at a
laser power of 300 W and a scan speed of 500 mm/s. The phenomenon
is attributable to entrapped hydrogen and evaporation of Mg during
SLM at higher laser energy input [27]. Few micropores are presented
in the sample at the laser power 400 W and the scan speed 800 mm/s.
According to the results discussed above, it can be concluded that the
formation of micropores obviously affects the relative densities of sam-
ple, the relative densities are well-matched with image analysis. Based
on the relative density results and metallographic micrographs, it can
be found that optimized SLM parameter of laser power 400 W, scan
speed 800 mm/s favors the SLM densification of the alloy.
3.2. Hardness evolution
Fig. 3a shows the micro-hardness varies versus aging temperature at
various laser power at a constant scan speed of 800 mm/s and aging
time 4 h. The hardnesses of annealing sample are notably higher than
that without aging treatment of as-printed samples (AVG. 85 HV). Before
reaching the maximum hardness, the hardness of samples initially in-
creases with the temperature. Then the maximum hardness reaches
steady for a time and decreases afterwards with the further increase of
temperature. And the maximal value of 125 HV is obtained at the temper-
ature of 325 °C. Fig. 3b shows the micro-hardness varies versus aging time
at different annealing temperatures. Annealing temperature obviously af-
fects the value of hardness at initial aging time. A slow increase in hard-
ness is observed at temperature 275 °C when aging time is extended. At
a higher temperature 325 °C, it is noticed that the hardness about
122 HV is the highest after 4 h. When further elevates annealing temper-
ature to 375 °C, the maximal hardness about 115 HV is achieved at aging
time 0.5 h and this hardness value keeps steady until the time reaches
12 h, while further prolonging annealing time induces the decrease of
hardness. In above, it is observed that optimal aging parameters for the
alloy are temperature 300–350 °C and aging time 4–12 h.

Fig. 2. The relative density of SLM processed samples changes with the applied laser power and scan speed, with embedded optical micrographs of vertical section of three representative
samples.
4 R. Li et al. / Materials and Design 168 (2019) 107668
Fig. 3. (a) The micro-hardness varies versus aging temperature at various laser powers at a constant scan speed of 800 mm/s and aging time 4 h, (b) The micro-hardness varies versus aging
time at different annealing temperatures.
3.3. Mechanical properties
Fig. 4 illustrates the stress-strain curves of SLM printed samples
(400 W, 800 mm/s) at various aging time (fixed temperature 325 °C)
and corresponding tensile strength (TS), yield strength (YS) and
elongation-to-failure (EI) value. The TS, YS and EI of the as-printed sam-
ples was about 222 MPa, 166 MPa and 10%, respectively. The aging time
of the aging treatment significantly affects mechanical properties of the
SLM samples, especially the elongation-to-failure. After aging treatment
of 2 h, an increase in both strength and ductility can be observed. When
further increasing the aging time to 4 h, the tensile strength, yield
strength and elongation-to-failure enhance to approximately
373 MPa, 289 MPa and 32.5%, respectively [28]. However, the strength
slightly increases and elongation-to-failure sharply drops when the
aging time exceeds 12 h. It concluded that the optimal aging condition
for excellent strength and ductility trade-off of the SLM sample were
at temperature 325 °C and aging time 2–6 h.
The fracture surfaces of the alloy before and after aging treatment
were illustrated in Fig. 5. For the as-printed alloy, the fracture surface
shows predominant cleavage facets and a few dimples (Fig. 5a, d),
which is consistent with the poor strength and low ductility shown in
Fig. 4. When the as-printed samples were heat treated at aging temper-
ature 325 °C for aging time 4 h, large amounts of dimples with a size of
2–5 μm were observed on the fracture surface (Fig. 5b, e), revealing the
mechanism for improvement of strength and ductility of the aged SLM
samples. As the aging time increases to 16 h at aging temperature 325
°C, fracture surface displays typical river pattern and the dimple size in-
creases to about 4 μm (Fig. 5c, f). In other regions, there were some
micro-pores on the fracture surface, corresponding to the decreased
ductility although the tensile strength enhances.
3.4. Phase analysis
Fig. 6 shows the XRD patterns of the alloy powder, as-printed and
aged (325 °C) Al-Mg-Sc-Zr alloy with different holding time. As shown,
Fig. 4. The stress-strain curves of SLM samples at various aging time (fixed temperature 325 °C) and corresponding tensile strength (TS), yield strength (YS) and elongation-to-failure (EI) value.
the diffraction peaks corresponding to α-Al and Al3(Sc,Zr) are detected
in powder and SLM printed samples. The XRD observation shows that
the diffraction angles of SLM printed samples shift to a lower value than
the original powder diffraction peaks. This is mainly because of the fact
that the rapid heating/cooling rate induce large temperature gradient
and thermal fluctuations during SLM process [29], resulting in severe
thermal and residual stresses to form in the printed samples. The residual
stress is acted on the grain boundaries accompanied by microscopic vol-
ume expansion, which affects the lattice parameters of the printed sam-
ples. However, the diffraction angles apparently changed from lower to
higher value when the samples after aging treatment, implying that the
relaxation of residual stress [3]. And the XRD patterns show secondary
peak of Al3(Sc,Zr), owing to certain amount of Al3(Sc,Zr) phases precipi-
tate from supersaturated α-Al matrix after aging treatment.
3.5. Microstructure and precipitates
Fig. 7 shows the EBSD orientation maps (a–c), grain size distribution
(d–f) at laser power 400 W and scanning speed 800 mm/s, (a, d) as-
printed, (b, e) HT (325 °C/4 h), (c, f) HT(325 °C/16 h). From Fig. 7a,
the EBSD orientation map of as-printed shows a range of lighter colors,
which implies that the grains are randomly oriented in various crystal
orientations. After aging treatment at 325 °C/4 h, the EBSD orientation
map is obviously red, blue, green and other intermediate color, which
also shows no strong crystal orientation for the grain growth. When fur-
ther increasing the aging treatment to 16 h, it can be found that the red
areas obviously increase in the EBSD orientation map, indicating that
the samples shows a strong (100) orientation. Moreover, the average
grain sizes of the samples calculated from the EBSD orientation maps
before and after aging treatment is about 27 μm. It is concluded that
the aging treatment has only a little influence on the grain size of the
alloy. As the subtle change of grain size, its effect on the properties of
the samples is neglected in this work.
The characteristics of directional solidification during SLM process
not only caused the morphology difference of melting pool, but also
 R. Li et al. / Materials and Design 168 (2019) 107668 5

Fig. 5. SEM micrographs showing fracture surfaces: (a, d) as-printed, (b, e) 325 °C/4 h, (c, f) 325 °C/16 h.

Fig. 6. The XRD patterns of the alloy powder, as-printed and aged (325 °C) Al-Mg-Sc-Zr alloy with different aging time.

Fig. 7. The EBSD orientation maps (a–c), grain size distribution (d–f), (a, d) as-printed, (b, e) 325 °C/4 h, (c, f) 325 °C/16 h. (For interpretation of the references to color in this figure, the
reader is referred to the web version of this article.)
6 R. Li et al. / Materials and Design 168 (2019) 107668

Fig. 8. The {100} pole figures (a–c) and inverse pole figures (d–f) of α-Al phase, (a, d) as-printed, (b, e) 325 °C/4 h, (c, f) 325 °C/16 h.

caused the difference of crystal texture. In order to quantify the effect of
heat treatment on texture intensities of samples, the texture index and
texture strength are introduced. The texture index is calculated by the
orientation distribution function (ODF), and it can be expressed by
Eq. (1) as follows [17]:
Z number became more higher (Fig. 9c). It is also observed the morphol-
2 ogies of precipitates are composed of circle and square shapes.
Texture Index ¼ ð f ðgÞÞ dg
eulerspace
where, f is the texture orientation distribution, g is the Euler space coor-
dinate system, and f(g) is the ODF. According to the Eq. (1), the maximal
texture indexes of the as-printed, aging treatment (325 °C/4 h), aging
treatment (325 °C/16 h) were calculated to be 5.211, 3.959 and 6.007,
respectively. Furthermore, the texture strength is also more of a mean-
ingful parameter when quantifying the texture intensity of the sample,
which is defined as the square root of the texture index. Different colors
of the inverse pole figure reflect the strength of the texture, which is
shown Fig. 8d–f. The texture strengths of as-printed, aging treatment
(325 °C/4 h), aging treatment (325 °C/16 h) were calculated to be
2.569, 1.710 and 3.265, respectively. The texture index and texture
strength of SLM Al-3.02Mg-0.2Sc-0.1Zr samples are greater than 1, re-
vealing that the material shows obvious anisotropy. Moreover, the de-
crease of the texture index and texture strength at 325 °C/4 h
indicates that the material tends to be isotropic. The texture intensity
of aging treated at 325 °C/16 h is almost 2 times higher than that of
aging treated at 325 °C/4 h, suggesting that the aging time has a great
effect on the texture of SLM-processed Al-3.02Mg-0.2Sc-0.1Zr.
The change of grain size is not obvious before and after aging treat-
ment, so precipitates are significant strengthening mechanism for the
alloy. Fig. 9 displays the characteristics of the Al3(Sc,Zr) precipitates in
horizontal section before and after aging treatment at a VED of
83 J/mm3. The segregation of the Al3(Sc,Zr) precipitates can be found
in the melting pool borders without aging treatment (Fig. 9a). When
the aging treatment was performed, the Al3(Sc,Zr) precipitates mainly
exists at grain boundaries. Meanwhile, the number of the precipitates
increase and the size of the precipitates becomes larger (Fig. 9b). As
the aging time increases, Al3(Sc,Zr) precipitates became larger and the
ð1Þ
Fig. 10 shows TEM images of the SLM processed Al-Mg-Sc-Zr alloy.
From the TEM bright-field images of the alloy, it can be observed from
Fig. 10a that a large number of clearly visible dislocations are found in
the matrix. The columnar grains are presents in Fig. 10d and Fig. 10g
and no signs of high dislocation density are found in these regions.
Based on SAED image analysis, the FCC phases of α-Al and L12 Al3(Sc,
Zr) are identified as coherent lattice with some same zone axis of [112],
[001] and [111]. Nanosized Al3(Sc,Zr) precipitate from α-Al is also ob-
served in the HRTEM image. In FFT images the superstructure peak typical
for the L12 structure is detected, implying the particle has the Al3(Sc,Zr)
structure.
4. Discussion
The hardness evolution of SLM printed samples versus aging tem-
peratures at aging time 4 h is presented in Fig. 3. The hardness shows
a rising trend at the temperature below 300 °C and decreasing trend
gradually at the temperature above 350 °C (Fig. 3a). It is also noted
that the precipitation hardening effects are quite obvious at the temper-
ature range 300–350 °C for the present alloy. The hardness increase is
because of the precipitation of nanosized Al3(Sc,Zr) particles from α-
Al supersaturated solid solution after aging treatment. However, hard-
ness reduction by overaging can be explained by loss of coherency for
nano-sized Al3(Sc,Zr) precipitates when the particles reaches its critical
diameter (21.5 nm) at high temperature [30]. The critical temperatures

Fig. 9. The distribution and characteristics of the Al3(Sc,Zr) particles at 83 J/mm3: (a) as-printed, (b) 325 °C/4 h, (c) 325 °C/12 h.
 R. Li et al. / Materials and Design 168 (2019) 107668
Fig. 10. TEM bright-field images (a, d, g), the SAED pattern (b, e, h), HRTEM image of α-Al and Al3(Sc,Zr) (c, f, i): (a–c) as-printed, (d–f) 325 °C/4 h, (g-i) 325 °C/12 h.
of 370 °C and 400 °C for achieving the maximum hardness have been re-
ported by Røyset [31] for Al-0.2 wt% Sc alloy and Spierings [26] for SLM
printing Al-4.6Mg-0.66Sc-0.42Zr-0.49Mn alloy with high Sc and Zr con-
tent, which are both higher than the critical temperature of 350 °C of the
alloy in this paper. The slightly lower temperature is attributed to reduc-
tion of the solubility of Sc in Al with presence of Mg and low content of
Sc and Zr in the alloy together with less precipitates and faster growth
rate of Al3(Sc,Zr) particles for the alloy. Fig. 3b shows the hardness evo-
lution at different temperature for different holding time. It is found that
extended aging time at low temperature is a critical factor for achieving
demanded precipitation hardening effect. When the temperatures are
above 375 °C, maximal hardness can be obtained in a very short time.
Moreover, Marquis et al. [32] analyzed the precipitates radii are rela-
tively large at higher temperature when the aging treatment just
begin, and the particles grow up quickly at the extended holding time.
According to the results discussed above, it can be concluded that the
temperature of the aging treatment should be set as the value between
300 °C and 350 °C. The maximal hardness of the alloy can be achieved at
the aging time ranges from 4 to 12 h.
According to the stress-strain curve of the alloy, it can be observed
that the alloy shows unstable serrations in the plastic deformation re-
gion, which is the Portevin-Le Chatelier (PLC) effect [26]. It often ap-
pears in Al\\Mg alloys. The effect is related to dynamic strain aging
(DSA), solute atoms interacted with dislocation motion, which account
for the microscopic mechanism of the effect. The aging strengthening
occurs during the plastic deformation. According to the serration char-
acteristic, the serration in the as-printed condition has a general
stress-level, and its characteristics can be identified as type B serrations.
7
In contrast, the curves first rises and then drops to the value below the
pressure level and fluctuates significantly, which is identified as type A
serrations. It can be concluded that a higher volume fraction of Al3(Sc,
Zr) precipitates particles is obtained after heat treatment, which pro-
motes the transformation of the serration in the stress-strain curve
from type B to type A. These additional fine nano-scaled particles are po-
tential obstacles for dislocation movement together with the Mg atoms,
resulting in the more hopping type A serrations.
The mechanical properties of SLM printed Al-3.02Mg-0.2Sc-0.1Zr
alloy are enhanced remarkably after aging treated. As Rometsch et al. re-
ported that the rapid solidification and cooling rates during laser melt-
ing processes can place more Sc and Zr into solution and thereby
enable more Al3(Sc,Zr) strengthening precipitates to form after the
post aging treatment [33]. So the strength of the presented alloy is in-
creased on account of the precipitation strengthening caused by Al3
(Sc,Zr) precipitation. As to the enhancement of tensile ductility of the
heat treated Al-Mg-Sc alloy in this study, the existence of residual stress
needs to be considered. During the SLM process, a great thermal gradi-
ent will be created due to the repetitive rapid heating and cooling,
which induce the residual stress, thus resulting in a high density of dis-
locations in the Al matrix. Therefore, the residual stresses were relaxed
through aging treatment which benefits the tensile ductility. The tensile
strength of 373 MPa, yield strength of 289 MPa and elongation-to-
failure of 32.5% are gained after aging treated at 325 °C for 4 h [28].
The strengths and elongation of the alloy are higher than the Al-
3.42Mg-0.23Sc-0.22Zr cast 5754 alloy with tensile strength of
340 MPa, yield strength of 230 MPa and elongation of 11% after heat
treated at 288 °C/72 h [34].
8 R. Li et al. / Materials and Design 168 (2019) 107668
5. Conclusion
In the present study, effect of aging treatment on microstructural
evolution and mechanical properties of SLM printed Al-3.02Mg-0.2Sc-
0.1Zr alloy with low Sc and Zr content was systematically studied. Con-
clusions are drawn as follows:
1. After aging, the hardness of SLM printed sample increases appar-
ently. Increasing aging temperature and time can improve the hard-
ness at the beginning; while the excessively high aging temperature
and time (over aging) decrease the hardness. Relatively reasonable
aging parameters are temperature 300–350 °C and holding time
4–12 h, by which the hardness can be improved from initial 85 HV
of as-printed sample to 120 HV after aging.
2. The strength and elongation-to-failure of the samples after aging are
significantly improved compared with the samples without aging. At
an optimal aging condition, the maximal tensile strength and yield
strength are 400 MPa and 327 MPa, respectively. Also, the strength
and ductility trade-off of the alloy can be regulated by aging
parameters.
3. The XRD patterns show the secondary peak of Al3(Sc,Zr) after aging
treatment, implying that certain amount of Al3(Sc,Zr) particles are
separated from the α-Al matrix. Moreover, owing to the release of re-
sidual stress, the diffraction angles shifted to a higher value after
aging treatment. The FCC phases of α-Al and L12 Al3(Sc,Zr) were
identified as coherent lattice by TEM. The grains boundaries show
nano-sized Al3(Sc,Zr) precipitates. EBSD observation shows main co-
lumnar grains and small grains on the vertical section. The grain sizes
of the samples did not become coarser due to the existence of more
Al3(Sc,Zr) precipitates hampering grain growth.
Data availability
The raw/processed data required to reproduce these findings cannot
be shared at this time as the data also forms part of an ongoing study.
Acknowledgements
The authors are grateful for the financial support from the National
Key Research and Development Program (grant No. 2016YFB1100101),
National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant Nos. 51871249,
51571214) and Science and Technology Bureau, Changsha (kq1801068).
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