Manufacturing Feasibility and Forming Properties of Cu-4Sn in Selective Laser Melting

Copper alloys, combined with selective laser melting (SLM) technology, have attracted increasing attention in aerospace engineering, automobile, and medical fields. However, there are some difficulties in SLM forming owing to low laser absorption and excellent thermal conductivity. It is, therefore, necessary to explore a copper alloy in SLM. In this research, manufacturing feasibility and forming properties of Cu-4Sn in SLM were investigated through a systematic experimental approach. Single-track experiments were used to narrow down processing parameter windows. A Greco-Latin square design with orthogonal parameter arrays was employed to control forming qualities of specimens. Analysis of variance was applied to establish statistical relationships, which described the effects of different processing parameters (i.e., laser power, scanning speed, and hatch space) on relative density (RD) and Vickers hardness of specimens. It was found that Cu-4Sn specimens were successfully manufactured by SLM for the first time and both its RD and Vickers hardness were mainly determined by the laser power. The maximum value of RD exceeded 93% theoretical density and the maximum value of Vickers hardness reached 118 HV 0.3/5. The best tensile strength of 316–320 MPa is inferior to that of pressure-processed Cu-4Sn and can be improved further by reducing defects

Collaborative Optimization of Density and Surface Roughness of 316L Stainless Steel in Selective Laser Melting

Although the concept of additive manufacturing has been proposed for several decades, momentum in the area of selective laser melting (SLM) is finally starting to build. In SLM, density and surface roughness, as the important quality indexes of SLMed parts, are dependent on the processing parameters. However, there are few studies on their collaborative optimization during SLM to obtain high relative density and low surface roughness simultaneously in the literature. In this work, the response surface method was adopted to study the influences of different processing parameters (laser power, scanning speed and hatch space) on density and surface roughness of 316L stainless steel parts fabricated by SLM. A statistical relationship model between processing parameters and manufacturing quality is established. A multi-objective collaborative optimization strategy considering both density and surface roughness is proposed. The experimental results show that the main effects of processing parameters on the density and surface roughness are similar. We observed that the laser power and scanning speed significantly affected the above objective quality, but the influence of the hatch spacing was comparatively low. Based on the above optimization, 316L stainless steel parts with excellent surface roughness and relative density can be obtained by SLM with optimized processing parameters

Study on the Geometric Design of Supports for Overhanging Structures Fabricated by Selective Laser Melting

Additional structures are usually adopted to support the overhanging structures in order to resist the deformation of parts. Improper geometric design of the support structures may result in a sharp deterioration in the surface quality and a failure of manufacture, which affects the expansion in the use of selective laser melting (SLM) technology. In this research, cuboids were added into the conventional block support for a better heat dissipation. The Taguchi method was used to analyze the effect of the geometric design of this support on the part’s deformation and surface roughness. It was found that solid pieces or cuboids as support structures can reduce the deformation. However, their effects are weaker than those of teeth structures which decrease the deformation by more reliable connections. It is interesting that narrowing the gap between the cuboids and overhang can weaken the strength of teeth structures and then increases the deformation of part. In general, the distance between every two adjacent walls of support and the gap between the cuboids and the overhang have the greatest influence on the part’s deformation and surface quality respectively

The Influence of Process Parameters and Scanning Strategy on Lower Surface Quality of TA15 Parts Fabricated by Selective Laser Melting

With superior flexible manufacturing capability, selective laser melting (SLM) has attracted more and more attention in the aerospace, medical, and automotive industries. However, the poor quality of the lower surface in overhanging structures is still one of the factors that limits the wide application of SLM. In this work, the influence of process parameters and scanning strategy on the lower surface quality of SLMed TA15 (Ti-6Al-2Zr-1Mo-1V) titanium alloy parts were studied. The results showed that the laser surface energy density (EF) had a significant influence on the quality of the lower surface. Excessive EF led to obvious sinking of the molten pool and a serious slag hanging phenomenon. However, the too low EF easily contributed to the insufficient powder fusion in the lower surface area, which led to the agglomeration of a molten pool during core processing, resulting in slag hanging, pores, and powder spalling that reduced the quality of the lower surface. Moreover, the cross-remelting strategy and non-remelting strategy gained better surface quality at the low EF and high EF, respectively. In addition, it was found that the quality of the lower surface could be quickly and accurately evaluated by the cooling time of the molten pool during the processing of the lower surface. This research can increase the understanding of the forming mechanism of the lower surface and has certain guiding significance for the process optimization of the lower surface

TSC-22 contributes to hematopoietic precursor cell proliferation and repopulation and is epigenetically silenced in large granular lymphocyte leukemia

Aberrant methylation of tumor suppressor genes can lead to their silencing in many cancers. TSC-22 is a gene silenced in several solid tumors, but its function and the mechanism(s) responsible for its silencing are largely unknown. Here we demonstrate that the TSC-22 promoter is methylated in primary mouse T or natural killer (NK) large granular lymphocyte (LGL) leukemia and this is associated with down-regulation or silencing of TSC-22 expression. The TSC-22 deregulation was reversed in vivo by a 5-aza-2′-deoxycytidine therapy of T or NK LGL leukemia, which significantly increased survival of the mice bearing this disease. Ectopic expression of TSC-22 in mouse leukemia or lymphoma cell lines resulted in delayed in vivo tumor formation. Targeted disruption of TSC-22 in wild-type mice enhanced proliferation and in vivo repopulation efficiency of hematopoietic precursor cells (HPCs). Collectively, our data suggest that TSC-22 normally contributes to the regulation of HPC function and is a putative tumor suppressor gene that is hypermethylated and silenced in T or NK LGL leukemia