Characterization of Microstructure and Mechanical Properties of Stellite 6 Part Fabricated by Wire Arc Additive Manufacturing

Abstract

Stellite 6 alloy has excellent wear resistance, corrosion resistance, and oxidation resistance, however the difficulties in traditional processing limit its wide application. Additive manufacturing technology that has emerged in recent years is expected to provide a new way for the processing of stellite 6 alloy. In this study, two square thin-walled stellite 6 parts were fabricated through the wire arc additive manufacturing technology. At the same time, the effect of stress relief annealing on the mechanical performance of the fabricated stellite 6 part was studied and compared with the corresponding casting part. The results indicate that the additive manufacturing stellite 6 components exhibit satisfactory quality and appearance. Moreover, the microstructure of the additive manufacturing part is much finer than that of the casting part. From the substrate to the top region of the additive manufacturing part, the morphology of the dendrites changes from columnar to equiaxed, and the hardness increases firstly and then decreases gradually. In addition, the average hardness of the additive manufacturing part is ~7–8 HRC higher than the casting part. The ultimate tensile strength and yield strength is ~150MPa higher than the casting part, while the elongation is almost the same. The stress relief annealing has no significant effect on the hardness of the AM part, but it can slightly improve the strength.

Effect of Ultrasonic Vibration and Interpass Temperature on Microstructure and Mechanical Properties of Cu-8Al-2Ni-2Fe-2Mn Alloy Fabricated by Wire Arc Additive Manufacturing

“…The width of the thin walls increased from 7.5-8.0 mm to 8.5-9.0 mm after treatment UVA. The size of the WAAM component is decided by the shape of the molten pool [12]. The ultrasonic vibration is able to accelerate the relative movement between the solid phase and surrounding liquid phase in the molten pool, leading to a better spreading of the molten pool on the previously deposited layers.…”

“…In recent years, wire arc additive manufacturing (WAAM) has gained considerable interest due to its high deposition rate, efficiency, full density, and low equipment cost [10]. In WAAM process, an electric arc is used as a heat source and employs either gas metal arc welding (GMAW [11]), gas tungsten arc welding (GTAW [12]) or plasma arc welding (PAW [13]) to melt the wire as the feed stock. As compared to the conventional casting, the cooling rates in WAAM are significantly higher (WAAM: 10 2 K/s [14], cast: 10K/s [6]) to obtain fine grains.…”

Feasibility Analysis of Machining Cobalt-Chromium Alloy (Stellite-6) Using TiN Coated Binary Inserts

“…Stellite 6 parts manufactured by wire arc additive manufacturing (WAAM) exhibit good formation quality. The parts manufactured by WAAM can be made thinner than the cast parts [ 29 ].…”

Characterization of Cobalt-Based Stellite 6 Alloy Coating Fabricated by Laser-Engineered Net Shaping (LENS)

“…The LENS technique has been successfully used for the application of multi-layer Stellite™ coating on stainless steel for use on cutting tools [ 43 ]. However, as the authors of [ 44 ] have indicated, there are very few papers on the fabrication of Stellite 6 alloy parts using additive techniques. Recently, Traxel and Bandyopadhyay [ 22 ] have successfully obtained WC-Co + diamond composites using the LENS technique.…”