Selective Laser Melting of an Al–Fe–V–Si Alloy: Microstructural Evolution and Thermal Stability

Selective laser melting was used to produce an aluminum alloy Al-8.5Fe-1.3V-1.7Si (wt%). The effects of heat treatment on microstructure evolution and phase stability during long-term thermal exposure of the deposits were investigated. Results show that the microquasi-crystalline phase, Al 12 (Fe,V) 3 Si and Al m Fe metastable phases coexisted with α-Al in the as-produced alloy. Annealing at 400 °C resulted in decomposition of microquasi-crystalline phase and supersaturated α-Al into Al 12 (Fe, V) 3 Si phase in the fusion zone, accompanied by the decrease in alloy hardness. The activation energy of this decomposition process was 115 kJ/mol. A more homogenous microstructure was obtained after annealing at 400 °C for 60 min, which was resistant to coarsening exposed at 425 °C up to 500 h. The Al 12 (Fe,V) 3 Si and Al m Fe phases were coarsened at 475 and 525 °C with increasing the exposure time. Coarsening of Al 12 (Fe,V) 3 Si phase was attributed to a combination of volume diffusion and grain boundary diffusion mechanism of Fe. Heat treatment at 600 °C resulted in accelerated microstructure coarsening and formation of large-sized equilibrium phases, which significantly degraded the room temperature microhardness.