Non-contact ultrasound to assist laser additive manufacturing

In ultrasound-aided laser melting processes such as additive manufacturing, it is generally believed that acoustic cavitation is essential for grain refinement during solidification while acoustic streaming plays a negligible role. We propose a non-contact ultrasound approach to provide low-intensity ultrasound, i.e., below the melt cavitation threshold, ensuring a pure acoustic streaming regime. Without cavitation, it is found that fine equiaxed grains still can be achieved. This is attributed to the combined effects of acoustic streaming and Marangoni force, which create a high-frequency-shaking type melt flow in the melt pool, leading to fatigue fracture of dendrites and thus grain refinement. Moreover, low-intensity ultrasound can offer stable melt pool modulation throughout layer-by-layer processing, enabling uniform grain refinement in large-scale samples, which is a challenge for the current direct-contact ultrasound approach.

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Publication Details

Journal
Nature Communications
Published
2025-08-15
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-62803-w
Citations
8
Primary Topic
Additive Manufacturing Materials and Processes
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
5.71

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article

Non-contact ultrasound to assist laser additive manufacturing

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8 citations
Nature Communications
Additive Manufacturing Materials and Processes
5.71
article

Non-contact ultrasound to assist laser additive manufacturing

Wentao Yan, Weiming Niu, Siyuan Ruan, Wenjun Ge, Yajing Sun, Weihao Yuan, Jiasen Han, Haiou Yang, Shuo Yin, Shuhao Wang, Xin Lin, Yuejie Ai, Hui Chen
article en
8 citations

Abstract

In ultrasound-aided laser melting processes such as additive manufacturing, it is generally believed that acoustic cavitation is essential for grain refinement during solidification while acoustic streaming plays a negligible role. We propose a non-contact ultrasound approach to provide low-intensity ultrasound, i.e., below the melt cavitation threshold, ensuring a pure acoustic streaming regime. Without cavitation, it is found that fine equiaxed grains still can be achieved. This is attributed to the combined effects of acoustic streaming and Marangoni force, which create a high-frequency-shaking type melt flow in the melt pool, leading to fatigue fracture of dendrites and thus grain refinement. Moreover, low-intensity ultrasound can offer stable melt pool modulation throughout layer-by-layer processing, enabling uniform grain refinement in large-scale samples, which is a challenge for the current direct-contact ultrasound approach.

Nature CommunicationsVol. 16(1)
National University of Singapore (SG), Northwestern Polytechnical University (CN), Trinity College Dublin (IE), Wuhan University of Science and Technology (CN)
Ministry of Education - Singapore, National Natural Science Foundation of China, Ministry of Education, India, China Scholarship Council, National Key Research and Development Program of China, HORIZON EUROPE European Innovation Council
Openalex Percentile: Top 3%
Additive Manufacturing Materials and Processes
5.71
DOIOpen Access PDFOpenAlex
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