Laser 3D printing forming system of amorphous alloy foil and forming method thereof

Abstract

The invention belongs to the field of additive manufacturing of amorphous alloy, and discloses a laser 3D printing forming system of amorphous alloy foil and a forming method thereof. The unnecessary material of the amorphous alloy foil is cut by a first laser and then the remaining portion is selectively scanned and heated by a second laser so that the amorphous alloy is heated to be in a superplastic state in the supercooled liquid region. Then, the amorphous alloy foil is rolled by a preheated roller in combination with the ultrasonic vibration to achieve interatomic bonding between layers of the amorphous alloy foil, and the amorphous alloy foil is then rapidly cooled, so that an amorphous alloy part with a large size, a complicated shape and a porous structure is formed. The invention has overcome the limitation of the size and shape of the amorphous alloy prepared by the traditional amorphous alloy preparation methods, and uses amorphous alloy foil as a raw material, which has lower cost than the traditional 3D printing amorphous powder. In addition, a roller is used to roll the ultra-thin amorphous alloy foil such that the prepared amorphous alloy part has a more compact internal structure.

Claims

1. A laser 3D printing forming system, comprising a first laser, a second laser, a base plate, a feeding mechanism, and an amorphous alloy foil, wherein, the feeding mechanism comprises a plurality of roller wheels, on which the amorphous alloy foil is wound such that feeding and discharging of the amorphous alloy foil are achieved by the rotation of a feeding roller wheel at the head end and a discharging roller wheel at the tail end; the base plate is provided below the rear end of the feeding mechanism and used as a processing platform for the amorphous alloy foil; a lifting platform is provided below the base plate; the first laser is provided above the front end of the feeding mechanism to achieve cutting of the internal contour on the amorphous alloy foil; the second laser is provided above the rear end of the feeding mechanism in a manner of being opposite to the base plate to selectively heat the amorphous alloy foil on the base plate; the second laser is configured to heat the amorphous alloy foil to a temperature in a supercooled liquid region between a glass transition temperature and an initial crystallization temperature, a roller is connected to a laser head of the second laser and is used for rolling the amorphous alloy foil heated by the second laser; and a resistance heating rod and an ultrasonic emitter are provided in the roller, in which the resistance heating rod is used for preheating the roller, and the ultrasonic emitter is used for emitting ultrasonic waves during the rolling process to achieve ultrasonic rolling.

2. The laser 3D printing forming system of claim 1, wherein an air gun is provided on one side of the first laser to remove scrap generated by cutting operation of the first laser, and a scrap collecting tank is provided below the first laser and the air gun to collect the scrap.

3. The laser 3D printing forming system of claim 1, wherein a suction nozzle is provided on one side of the second laser to suck and remove the scrap.

4. The laser 3D printing forming system of claim 1, wherein the first laser is a UV pulsed laser, and the second laser is a CW laser.

5. The laser 3D printing forming system of claim 1, wherein a screw is provided below the lifting platform to adjust the height of the lifting platform; the resistance heating rod is provided in the center of the roller and has the same length as the roller; and the ultrasonic emitter is provided on both ends of the roller.

6. The laser 3D printing forming system of claim 1, wherein the amorphous alloy foil has a thickness of 30 μm to 150 μm.

7. The laser 3D printing forming system of claim 1, wherein the ultrasonic emitter in the roller has an ultrasonic frequency of 10 kHz to 30 kHz and an ultrasonic power of 30 W to 60 W.

8. The laser 3D printing forming system of claim 1, wherein the amorphous alloy foil is a Zr-based, Fe-based or Cu-based amorphous alloy.

9. The laser 3D printing forming system of claim 1, wherein the resistance heating rod is configured to preheat the roller to the glass transition temperature ±5K.

Description

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

(1) FIG. 1 is a structural schematic diagram of a laser 3D printing system of amorphous alloy foil according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention;

(2) FIG. 2 is a structural schematic diagram of a roller according to the preferred embodiment of the present invention;

(3) FIG. 3 is a structural schematic diagram of a typical part to be prepared by using the amorphous alloy foil according to the preferred embodiment of the present invention;

(4) FIG. 4 is a schematic diagram of a single-layer sectioning layer of the typical part to be prepared by using the amorphous alloy foil according to the preferred embodiment of the present invention;

(5) FIG. 5 is a schematic diagram showing cutting by a first laser according to the preferred embodiment of the present invention;

(6) FIG. 6 is a schematic diagram showing transferring of the amorphous alloy foil onto a base plate according to the preferred embodiment of the present invention; and

(7) FIG. 7 is a schematic diagram showing operation of a suction nozzle according to the preferred embodiment of the present invention.

(8) In all figures, the same elements or structures are denoted by the same reference numerals, in which:

(9) 1: roller, 2: part to be processed, 3: base plate, 4: lifting platform, 5: screw, 6: laser head, 7: optical fiber, 8: second laser emitter, 9: first laser emitter, 10: first laser cladding head, 11: air gun, 12: amorphous alloy foil, 13: scrap collecting tank, 14: feeding roller wheel, 15: discharging roller wheel, 16: suction nozzle, 102: resistance heating rod, 103: ultrasonic emitter, 1201: area between the external contour and the internal contour, 1202: internal contour, 1203: wad, 1024: process scrap waste material.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

(10) For clear understanding of the objectives, features and advantages of the invention, detailed description of the invention will be given below in conjunction with accompanying drawings and specific embodiments. It should be noted that the embodiments described herein are only meant to explain the invention, and not to limit the scope of the invention.

(11) FIG. 1 is a structural schematic diagram of a laser 3D printing system of amorphous alloy foil according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention. As shown in FIG. 1, a laser 3D printing system of amorphous alloy foil comprises a first laser, a second laser, a base plate 3, a lifting platform 4 and a feeding mechanism, in which:

(12) the feeding mechanism comprises a plurality of roller wheels including a feeding roller wheel 14, a discharging roller wheel 15 and a transition roller wheel, on which amorphous alloy foil is wound such that feeding and discharging of the amorphous alloy foil are achieved by the rotation of the feeding roller wheel 14 at the head end and the discharging roller wheel 15 at the tail end; the base plate 3 is a processing platform for the amorphous alloy foil, which is provided below the rear end of the feeding mechanism; the lifting platform 4 is provided below the base plate 3 to adjust the height of the base plate 3;

(13) the first laser comprises a first laser emitter 9 and a first laser cladding head 10 and is provided above the front end of the feeding mechanism to achieve cutting of the internal contour on the amorphous alloy foil; the second laser comprises a second laser emitter 8, a laser head 6 and an optical fiber 7 connecting the second laser emitter to the laser head, and is provided above the rear end of the feeding mechanism in a manner of being opposite to the base plate 3 to selectively heat amorphous alloy foil on the base plate; a roller 1 is also connected to the laser head of the second laser and is used for rolling the selectively heated amorphous alloy foil; and a resistance heating rod 102 and an ultrasonic emitter 103 are provided in the roller, in which the resistance heating rod is used for preheating the roller, and the ultrasonic emitter is used for emitting ultrasonic waves during the rolling process so as to achieve ultrasonic rolling.

(14) An air gun 11 is provided on one side of the first laser to remove scrap generated by cutting operation of the first laser, and meanwhile, a scrap collecting tank 13 is provided below the first laser and the air gun to collect the scrap; and a suction nozzle 16 is provided on one side of the second laser to suck and remove the scrap.

(15) Preferably, the first laser is a UV pulsed laser, and the second laser is a continuous wave (CW) laser.

(16) A screw 5 is provided below the lifting platform to adjust the height of the lifting platform. In addition, as shown in FIG. 2, the resistance heating rod 102 is provided in the center of the roller and has the same length as the roller such that the roller is preheated more uniformly and sufficiently, and the ultrasonic emitter 103 is provided on both ends of the roller.

(17) The amorphous alloy foil has a thickness of 30 μm to 150 μm, and is an amorphous alloy with strong glass forming ability, good thermoplastic forming property and good thermal stability, such as Zr-based amorphous alloy, Fe-based amorphous alloy and Cu-based amorphous alloy.

(18) Preferably, the amorphous alloy foil is heated by laser scanning heating (i.e., heated by the second laser). However, the heating mode is not only limited to that in the present invention, and various kinds of other heating modes can be adopted, such as heat conduction (e.g., direct heating through the roller), thermal convection (e.g., blowing hot air) and heat radiation.

(19) The ultrasonic emitter has an ultrasonic frequency of 10 kHz to 30 kHz and an ultrasonic power of 30 W to 60 W.

(20) The traveling speed of the roller is adjustable. Further, after cutting is performed by the first laser in accordance with the internal contour, the generated scrap is removed by air gun blowing, and can also be removed by a vacuum sucker and the like.

(21) Provided a forming method of the laser 3D printing forming system of amorphous alloy foil. FIG. 3 shows a typical part to be prepared by using the amorphous alloy foil according to the preferred embodiment of the present invention. As shown in FIG. 3, the steps of processing the part in the FIG. 3 specifically include:

(22) (1) The three-dimensional structure of a desired part is sectioned to obtain a plurality of sectioning layers and internal and external contour information of the part in each sectioning layer; FIG. 4 is a schematic diagram of a single-layer sectioning layer of the typical part to be prepared by using the amorphous alloy foil according to the preferred embodiment of the present invention, and FIG. 5 is a schematic diagram showing cutting by a first laser according to the preferred embodiment of the present invention. As shown in FIGS. 4 and 5, in order to print a sectioning layer shown in FIG. 4, the laser 3D printing forming system is placed in a shielding gas, the contour shown on the amorphous alloy foil 12 in FIG. 5 is cut by the first laser, structural scrap within the external contour on the amorphous alloy foil that has not fallen down is blown into a scrap collecting tank 13 through an air gun, and according to the designed feeding stroke, the foil after cutting is conveyed onto the base plate for the next operation.

(23) (2) FIG. 6 is a schematic diagram showing transferring of the amorphous alloy foil to the base plate according to the preferred embodiment of the present invention. As shown in FIG. 6, by programming, an area required to be heated by the second laser is set to be an area 1201 between the external contour and the internal contour shown by the shaded portion in FIG. 6. The amorphous alloy foil is linearly scanned by the laser beam of the second laser so as to achieve rapid heating. The heating area 1201 is scanned and heated by the second laser to a temperature in the supercooled liquid region between the glass transition temperature T.sub.g and the initial crystallization temperature T.sub.x of the amorphous alloy, and before the temperature begins to drop significantly, the roller 101 preheated by the resistance heating rod 102 rolls over the surface of the area such that the amorphous alloy foil in the supercooled liquid region is atomically bonded to the base plate (or the previous layer) through the pressure in combination with the ultrasonic waves generated on the surface of the roller 101 by the ultrasonic emitter 103, and thus, interatomic bonding in the amorphous structure is achieved between layers of the amorphous alloy foil.

(24) (3) After the processing of the heating area 1201 is completed, wad removing operation is performed. FIG. 7 is a schematic diagram showing operation of a suction nozzle according to the preferred embodiment of the present invention. As shown in FIG. 7, the wad 1203 is sucked and removed from the part through the suction nozzle 16 to ensure that the printing surface does not have any unnecessary wad, and then the next operation is performed.

(25) (4) The lifting platform is lowered by 100 μm under the action of the screw 5 such that the welding portion of the foil is separated from the processing scrap 1204, and then under the action of the discharging roller wheel 15, the foil advances one stroke. The above operations are repeated until the processing of the part is completed.

(26) While particular embodiments of the invention have been shown and described, it will be obvious to those skilled in the art that changes and modifications may be made without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention.