Research Summaries

Back Processing-Microstructure-Property Relationships for Cold Spray Powder Deposition of Al-Cu Based Aluminum Alloys

Fiscal Year 2013
Division Graduate School of Engineering & Applied Science
Department Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering
Investigator(s) Brewer, Luke N.
Sponsor Office of Naval Research (Navy)
Summary In this project, we will manufacture Al-Cu powders, determine their microstructure-mechanical property relationships, deposit them using cold gas dynamic spraying, and examine the microstructure and mechanical properties of the resulting materials. The Al-Cu binary provides a rich, model system that will provide great scientific insight as well as strong technical impact to naval aviation. Al-Cu binary alloys become systematically stronger with increasing copper content, due primarily to precipitation strengthening, but the powders to not currently exist to assess how this alloy system will perform under cold spray deposition. As a result, we will partner with industry to create this new set of powder materials. We will map out the deposition efficiency and critical spray velocity for a range of particle microstructures, by varying copper content, precipitate size and fraction, and dislocation density. We will cold spray deposit and comprehensively characterize the microstructure and mechanical properties for a promising set of processing set of Al-Cu alloys. In addition, we will develop and implement a combined experimental and simulation approach to determine the correlation between powder particle microstructure and its dynamic deformation behavior and adhesion. This combination of engineering and fundamental scientific knowledge will allow us to predict what type of feedstock powder will be most suitable for the application of cold spray as a repair technique for 2xxx series alloys.
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Publications Publications, theses (not shown) and data repositories will be added to the portal record when information is available in FAIRS and brought back to the portal
Data Publications, theses (not shown) and data repositories will be added to the portal record when information is available in FAIRS and brought back to the portal