IEM Distinguished Lecturers Seminar: Additive manufacturing of aluminium: alloy design and machine learning assisted process optimization
Abstract
Additive manufacturing, in particular laser powder bed fusion technique (LPBF), has been widely used to fabricate various aluminium alloys including Al-Si, 6061, 7075 alloys in the past decade with the aim to target applications concerning high strength and light-weighted structures. However, due to intrinsic materials characteristics, e.g., solidification cracking, not many aluminium alloys have satisfactory LPBF processability. Therefore, it is in urgent need to design and develop more suitable aluminium alloys and their composites for LPBF manufacturing. Meanwhile, once new aluminium alloys are designed, it is also of great importance to optimise the LPBF process to achieve high quality components without any apparent processing defects such as cracks or porosity. Moreover, how to achieve the desired mechanical properties in these aluminium alloys via manipulating the LPBF optimised parameters is another interesting and profound topic. In this presentation, a novel in-situ alloy design process was first introduced to develop nanoparticle decorated aluminium alloys for LPBF and the resultant microstructure along with mechanical properties were investigated. Following this, a machine-learning assisted LPBF process optimisation process for aluminium alloys is described in detail to provide new insights into the microstructure control and properties manipulation of LPBF fabricated aluminium alloys.
Bio
Dr Xiaopeng Li is currently a tenured Senior Lecturer and Australian Research Council DECRA Fellow in the School Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering at The University of New South Wales (UNSW Sydney), leading a research group working on additive manufacturing and advanced materials research. He is also a member of UNSW Artificial Intelligence Institute and a member of Australian Centre for Space Engineering Research. He received his PhD degree in Materials Engineering from The University of Queensland, Australia in 2013, where his PhD thesis won the Best Thesis Award by Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Design in Light Metals in 2013. After his PhD, he joined The University of Western Australia as an Assistant Professor, working on additive manufacturing of metallic glasses, light alloys and their composites till 2016. Following this, he joined one of the world-famous additive manufacturing groups led by Prof Jean-Pierre Kruth at KU Leuven, Belgium as a Research Fellow till 2017. Dr Li has published 1 book chapter and 71 journal papers (5 ESI Highly Cited Papers and 2 cited ≥400 times and another 8 cited ≥100 times) with a total citation number of 3400 (Google Scholar). As of 2022, Dr Li has an H-index of 29 and FWCI of 3.54. In the past ten years, Dr Li has contributed to many fundamental and industrial-related research projects as a Lead Chief Investigator/Project Coordinator with a total funding around AUD 10 million in Australia and Europe and has given more than 40 invited presentations at international conferences and universities. Since 2020, Dr Li has been listed as World’s Top 2% Scientists in Materials & Applied Physics & Enabling Strategic Technologies (single year in 2019 and career in 2020) in the database of the most-cited scientists developed at Stanford University. He is currently the editorial board member for a few prestigious international journals including Scientific Reports, Metallurgical and Materials Transactions A, etc. and also a member of many international professional/academic communities including TMS. In addition, he also serves as a co-chair or a member of organising committee for a number of international conferences including the 1st and 3rd Asia-Pacific International Conferences on Additive Manufacturing (APICAM), the “3D-print of Ceramics” Symposia for the 11th International Conference on High-Performance Ceramics. Dr Li is also a regularly invited reviewer for many competitive research grants including European Research Council and Australian Research Council. His specific research interests include: development of various materials for additive manufacturing; design, simulation and machine learning for additive manufacturing; processing-microstructure-property relationship in additive manufacturing; hybrid additive manufacturing; and advanced materials and structures.
Additive manufacturing, in particular laser powder bed fusion technique (LPBF), has been widely used to fabricate various aluminium alloys including Al-Si, 6061, 7075 alloys in the past decade with the aim to target applications concerning high strength and light-weighted structures. However, due to intrinsic materials characteristics, e.g., solidification cracking, not many aluminium alloys have satisfactory LPBF processability. Therefore, it is in urgent need to design and develop more suitable aluminium alloys and their composites for LPBF manufacturing. Meanwhile, once new aluminium alloys are designed, it is also of great importance to optimise the LPBF process to achieve high quality components without any apparent processing defects such as cracks or porosity. Moreover, how to achieve the desired mechanical properties in these aluminium alloys via manipulating the LPBF optimised parameters is another interesting and profound topic. In this presentation, a novel in-situ alloy design process was first introduced to develop nanoparticle decorated aluminium alloys for LPBF and the resultant microstructure along with mechanical properties were investigated. Following this, a machine-learning assisted LPBF process optimisation process for aluminium alloys is described in detail to provide new insights into the microstructure control and properties manipulation of LPBF fabricated aluminium alloys.
Bio
Dr Xiaopeng Li is currently a tenured Senior Lecturer and Australian Research Council DECRA Fellow in the School Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering at The University of New South Wales (UNSW Sydney), leading a research group working on additive manufacturing and advanced materials research. He is also a member of UNSW Artificial Intelligence Institute and a member of Australian Centre for Space Engineering Research. He received his PhD degree in Materials Engineering from The University of Queensland, Australia in 2013, where his PhD thesis won the Best Thesis Award by Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Design in Light Metals in 2013. After his PhD, he joined The University of Western Australia as an Assistant Professor, working on additive manufacturing of metallic glasses, light alloys and their composites till 2016. Following this, he joined one of the world-famous additive manufacturing groups led by Prof Jean-Pierre Kruth at KU Leuven, Belgium as a Research Fellow till 2017. Dr Li has published 1 book chapter and 71 journal papers (5 ESI Highly Cited Papers and 2 cited ≥400 times and another 8 cited ≥100 times) with a total citation number of 3400 (Google Scholar). As of 2022, Dr Li has an H-index of 29 and FWCI of 3.54. In the past ten years, Dr Li has contributed to many fundamental and industrial-related research projects as a Lead Chief Investigator/Project Coordinator with a total funding around AUD 10 million in Australia and Europe and has given more than 40 invited presentations at international conferences and universities. Since 2020, Dr Li has been listed as World’s Top 2% Scientists in Materials & Applied Physics & Enabling Strategic Technologies (single year in 2019 and career in 2020) in the database of the most-cited scientists developed at Stanford University. He is currently the editorial board member for a few prestigious international journals including Scientific Reports, Metallurgical and Materials Transactions A, etc. and also a member of many international professional/academic communities including TMS. In addition, he also serves as a co-chair or a member of organising committee for a number of international conferences including the 1st and 3rd Asia-Pacific International Conferences on Additive Manufacturing (APICAM), the “3D-print of Ceramics” Symposia for the 11th International Conference on High-Performance Ceramics. Dr Li is also a regularly invited reviewer for many competitive research grants including European Research Council and Australian Research Council. His specific research interests include: development of various materials for additive manufacturing; design, simulation and machine learning for additive manufacturing; processing-microstructure-property relationship in additive manufacturing; hybrid additive manufacturing; and advanced materials and structures.
Practical information
- General public
- Free