This invention discloses a method for refining primary
silicon in Al-Si alloys through synergistic modification with nano-ceramics based on
laser additive manufacturing. The method involves uniformly mixing Al-Si
alloy powder with TiB2 and Al2O3 nano-ceramics using a
ball mill under
inert gas protection to obtain a
ceramic-reinforced nano-Al-Si
alloy composite
powder. This nano-
ceramic-modified Al-Si
alloy powder is then melted and solidified layer by layer using a
laser powder bed melting and forming equipment to create the desired target part. In this method, during the solidification of the nano-
ceramic-reinforced Al-Si alloy melt, Al2O3 nanoparticles, due to their similarity to the Si
crystal structure and the existence of a good interfacial coherence relationship, act as heterogeneous
nucleation sites for primary
silicon, increasing the
nucleation rate and refining the size of primary
silicon. TiB2 nanoparticles, distributed at the
solid-
liquid interface, can to a certain extent prevent the
diffusion and aggregation of Si atoms into Si-Si atom clusters, thereby inhibiting the growth of the primary silicon phase, promoting the regularization of the primary silicon morphology and refining its size, and effectively reducing matrix grain size, significantly improving the mechanical properties of the Al-Si alloy.