Non-contact ultrasound to assist laser additive manufacturing

Jiasen Han, Shuhao Wang, Wenjun Ge, Hui Chen (), Yajing Sun, Yuxiang Ai, Weihao Yuan, Siyuan Ruan, Weiming Niu, Haiou Yang, Shuo Yin, Wentao Yan and Xin Lin ()
Additional contact information
Jiasen Han: Northwestern Polytechnical University
Shuhao Wang: Wuhan University of Science and Technology
Wenjun Ge: National University of Singapore
Hui Chen: Northwestern Polytechnical University
Yajing Sun: Northwestern Polytechnical University
Yuxiang Ai: Northwestern Polytechnical University
Weihao Yuan: Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin
Siyuan Ruan: Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin
Weiming Niu: Northwestern Polytechnical University
Haiou Yang: Northwestern Polytechnical University
Shuo Yin: Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin
Wentao Yan: National University of Singapore
Xin Lin: Northwestern Polytechnical University

Nature Communications, 2025, vol. 16, issue 1, 1-13

Abstract: 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.

Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-62803-w Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:16:y:2025:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-025-62803-w

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-025-62803-w

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().