Anisotropic and elastoplastic characteristics of 3D printed graphene/aluminum composites by coupled experimental and numerical analysis

Abstract

The selective laser melting (SLM) forming of graphene/aluminum (Al) composites is difficult. Herein, the graphene/Al composites are successfully fabricated by SLM, and the printing process parameters are optimized experimentally. The anisotropic and elastoplastic characteristics of the graphene/Al composites by SLM are explored by the nanoindentation experiments first. The mesoscopic crystal plastic finite element (CPFE) model of the graphene/Al composites is developed, considering the microstructure characteristics from experiments, which presents a great agreement with the experimental data. The strengthening mechanism of graphene with various geometric sizes reinforced Al matrix composites is investigated by the novelly coupled experimental and CPFE methods.

Keywords:

• Anisotropy
• graphene/Al composites
• 3D printing
• nanoindentation
• crystal plasticity

Additional information

Funding

This work is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under the Project Numbers 11872079, 11772012 and 11632005, which are gratefully acknowledged.