Tailoring grain sizes of the biodegradable iron-based alloys by pre-additive manufacturing microalloying

We demonstrated the design of pre-additive manufacturing microalloying elements in tuning the microstructure of iron (Fe)-based alloys for their tunable mechanical properties. We tailored the microalloying stoichiometry of the feedstock to control the grain sizes of the metallic alloy systems. Two specific microalloying stoichiometries were reported, namely biodegradable iron powder with 99.5% purity (BDFe) and that with 98.5% (BDFe-Mo). Compared with the BDFe, the BDFe-Mo powder was found to have lower coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) value and better oxidation resistance during consecutive heating and cooling cycles. The selective laser melting (SLM)-built BDFe-Mo exhibited high ultimate tensile strength (UTS) of 1200 MPa and fair elongation of 13.5%, while the SLM-built BDFe alloy revealed a much lower UTS of 495 MPa and a relatively better elongation of 17.5%, indicating the strength enhancement compared with the other biodegradable systems. Such an enhanced mechanical behavior in the BDFe-Mo was assigned to the dominant mechanism of ferrite grain refinement coupled with precipitate strengthening. Our findings suggest the tunability of outstanding strength-ductility combination by tailoring the pre-additive manufacturing microalloying elements with their proper concentrations.