Hypervelocity Impact of Aluminum/Titanium Alloy Fabricated by Additive Manufacturing

Abstract

Additive manufacturing, as the next-generation processing technology, has the characteristic of being able to create complex parts in near-net shapes. The application of additive manufacturing is expanding in the development of space exploration, which require high strength material and complex structure. In this study, we used Directed Energy Deposition (DED), a category of additive manufacturing, to fabricate light metal specimens composed of an aluminum alloy (Al-10Si-0.4Mg) and a titanium alloy (Ti-6Al-4V). Hyper velocity impact experiments were conducted to simulate space debris collisions using a two-stage light gas gun. Further, using the layer-by-layer fabrication characteristic of additive manufacturing, we also explored the production of functionally graded materials (FGMs) of aluminum and titanium, which were difficult to join with traditional welding methods.