On the 3D printing of novel aluminium crossover alloys

Aluminium crossover alloys are one of the more interesting recent developments in light metals. Rather than staying within the traditional wrought families, they deliberately blend the chemistries of the AA5xxx and AA7xxx systems, and in doing so they form the compositionally complex T-phase, Mg32(Al,Cu)49, which gives a remarkable hardening response and has already attracted serious … Continue reading On the 3D printing of novel aluminium crossover alloys

Rethinking how cold spray really bonds dissimilar metals

Cold spray sounds almost too simple to work: fire a metal particle at a surface fast enough, and it sticks – no melting, no welding, just brute plastic deformation smashing a bond into place. That has been the textbook story for two decades. But in our latest paper with colleagues at Politecnico di Milano and … Continue reading Rethinking how cold spray really bonds dissimilar metals

One-grain-at-a-time: how in situ EBSD rewrote sink-strength theory for space aluminium

Ultrafine-grained (UFG) aluminium alloys are strong candidates for space structures: their dense grain-boundary network acts as sinks that absorb radiation-induced defects (more in our perspective review https://doi.org/10.1021/acsmaterialsau.5c00139). But that advantage only survives if the microstructure does — and in Low-Earth Orbit, sunlit components reach ~200 °C, right where severely deformed aluminium begins to recrystallise. The … Continue reading One-grain-at-a-time: how in situ EBSD rewrote sink-strength theory for space aluminium