Belén Alonso Rancurel

The project addresses sustainability from different perspectives. The material under development is Mg-based, which is the lighter structural material, critical in aerospace and automotive industries to reduce weight related consumption. It is ideal for biomedical applications because of its antibacterial properties and biodegradability, avoiding secondary interventions when used as implants. The main limitations for its use are the low corrosion resistance and mechanical strength of Mg alloys. This project aims at enhancing both through microstructural tunning avoiding the use of rare-earth elements.

Sustainability is also present in the processing technique which is additive manufacturing by laser-powder bed fusion (L-PBF). It reduces production cost for patient specific designs as well as raw material use. The fast cooling rates, variability of parameters and building strategies theoretically open the doors to new range of possible microstructures in the Mg-based alloy, from crystalline to bulk metallic glasses (BMG).

The project assists the development of the alloy modelling the L-PBF process. A finite element code is produced to predict the interaction of the laser with the material. CALPHAD based calculations are applied to link the building parameters to the different microstructure formation.