Research progress in aluminum alloy additive manufacturing

Aluminum alloy is the preferred material for lightweight structure, and has broad application prospects in aerospace, transportation and ships. The additive manufacturing of aluminum alloy possesses outstanding advantages and potential on fabricating complicated three-dimensional precision structural parts. Furthermore, this method can be characterized by its high efficiency and excellent structural properties. With regard to the rapid development of the aluminum alloy additive manufacturing, the research status and latest achievements of aluminum alloy fabricated with additive manufacturing from the aspects of structure and performance, precision and quality, controlling of defects and numerical simulation, and the shortcomings of current research were summarized. Based on these, the key issues that will be focused were summarized at last, including realizing the control of the micro-structure, clarifying the forming mechanism of the stress, improving the forming accuracy, and studying the distribution law of the temperature field in the forming process.