Abstract:
Aluminium alloys have gained popularity in many industries due to
their high strength and low weight. One shortcoming of aluminium
alloys is their poor resistance to abrasion and erosion wear
compared to materials such as stainless steels. In this project,
aluminium alloy 2014 (AA2014) was coated with a 1.5 mm thick
laser-deposited layer composed of silicon, copper, and aluminium
with the aim of increasing the wear resistance. The amount of
silicon, copper, and aluminium added to each sample was
determined by a mixtures model. It was discovered that the Al-Cu
system is very sensitive to silicon additions and that wear
resistance depends on the primary phase to solidify as well as on
the final phase distribution. Two primary phases were identified;
alpha aluminium and theta intermetallic. It was observed that the
clad layer increases both the hardness and wear resistance of
AA2014, and that the material solidifying as primary alpha
aluminium displayed a lower hardness but higher wear resistance
than the samples containing primary theta phase. All clad layers
performed better in terms of wear resistance than the unclad
samples. The knowledge gained and principles used in this project
could be applied to many other aluminium alloys.
