Comparative Study on Morphological, Physical and Mechanical Characteristics of L-PBF Based AlSi10Mg Parts with Conventional Stir Casted Al-10 %SiC Composites

Stir casting plays a major role in the production of Al-SiC10 % composites for aero space and automobile applications. However, obtaining the composites with homogenous distribution of the SiC particles, low porosity and without clustering of reinforcement particles are still a major problem faced by the research community. These kind of casting defects were overcome by the Additive Manufacturing (AM) technology. In this research, AlSi10Mg parts were manufactured by Laser-Powder Bed Fusion (LPBF) method, one of the AM techniques. The mechanical and morphological characteristics of Additive manufactured (AM) samples were compared with the Stir Casted (SC) samples. Both AM and SC samples were analyzed for the porosity% using the Optical Microscope (OM). From the porosity analysis, it was evident that the AM samples shows 14 % reduction in porosity when compared with the SC samples. Mechanical testing such as tensile test, hardness test, fracture toughness test and double shear stress were carried out. The results obtained from the tensile test reveals that the AM samples shows 28.6 % higher tensile strength than the SC samples. Similarly, the hardness test for the AM samples shows 23.69 % higher hardness strength than the SC samples. The fracture toughness test for the AM samples shows 50 % higher fracture toughness strength than the SC samples and from the results of double shear stress test proves that the AM samples shows 32.55 % higher shear stress than the SC samples. The outcome of this research proved that additive manufactured AlSi10Mg sample shows enhanced mechanical and morphological properties when compared with the conventional stir casting process.