Laser Direct Deposition Applied to the Manufacturing of Bulk, Net Shaped Metallic Glasses

Manufacturing of bulk metallic glasses (BMG) requires very rapid cooling and some recent work in laser direct deposition or laser engineered net shaping (LENS) techniques has indicated the possibility of producing net shaped bulk quantities of these materials. To date several groups have had some initial success in forming BMG"s using laser direct deposition suggesting that a careful variation of the process parameters can result in an excellent BMG. Recent work by Dr. Y. C. Shin at Purdue"s Mechanical Engineering Department has led to a self consistent model for LENS. This model incorporates all physical and material parameters and allows an efficient and cost effective means to explore LENS parameter space to optimize the production of BMG"s in net shaped bulk quantities. In the proposed effort Nanohmics, in partnership with Dr. Shin will apply the newly developed model to optimize the creation of bulk BMG"s. In addition composite materials which include the addition of reinforced fiber or particulate materials such as SiC fibers, WC or TiC, will be investigated and a means to incorporate these in the LENS process will be explored and developed. Composite BMG materials provide a very distinct increase in failure strengths under dynamic loads.