Printing high-strength high-elongation aluminum alloy using commercial ER2319 welding wires through deformation-based additive manufacturing

Despite extensive use of ER2319 welding wires for additive manufacturing of aluminum alloys in the aerospace and automotive field, the internal denseness, grain coarseness, and non-uniformity of additive-manufactured aluminum alloy parts are yet to be appropriately addressed. Thus, this study attempted to overcome this gap by using an ER2319 aluminum alloy welding wire to produce a uniform and fine-grained aluminum alloy using deformation-based friction rolling additive manufacturing (FRAM). The findings demonstrated that the FRAM-prepared materials were free of voids and cracks, with approximately equiaxed grains of only 4–6 μm. Further, the ultimate tensile strength (UTS) and yield strength (YS) of the deposited material in all directions differed only slightly, with the strengths in the longitudinal direction being 9.5 and 9.6% higher than that in the vertical direction, respectively. Furthermore, the combined UTS and elongation of the FRAM-prepared material are, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, the best results reported for printed aluminum alloys using ER2319 welding wire. The interesting research results presented in this study are expected to have significant practical application implications and usher in further research in this field.