Heat Treatment Optimization for a High Strength Al-Mn-Sc Alloy Fabricated by Selective Laser Melting.

A selective laser-melted Al-Mn-Sc alloy with 99.9% relative density has been obtained in this work through systematic process optimization. The as-fabricated specimen had the lowest hardness and strength, but the highest ductility. The aging response has shown that 300 °C/5 h is the peak aged condition, and it had the highest hardness, yield strength, ultimate tensile strength, and elongation at fracture. Such a high strength was attributed to the uniformly distributed nano-sized secondary AlSc precipitates. A further increase in aging temperature to 400 °C resulted in an over-aged condition, which contained a reduced volume fraction of secondary AlSc precipitates and resulted in a reduced strength.