Different industrial developments in 3D-printing of metals lead to individual solutions of lightweight constructions. Here, a lot of attention is paid to optimization of processes and the accompanied mechanical properties, whereas the subject of surface corrosion protection of light metal AM components has been little discussed so far.
Using the PEO (plasma electrolytical oxidation) process, additively manufactured light metals like Al, Mg, or Ti can be highly protected against wear and corrosion. Such a surface refinement provides a hard but ductile shell and increases the application cases of 3D-printed light metal components, leading to resistant surfaces and the implementation of light metals in highly loaded applications.

In this study we present the wear and corrosion properties of Ultraceramic® PEO on Liquid Metal Printed and Selectively Melted Aluminum alloys. The corrosion properties are characterized by means of electrochemical measurements and a long-term immersion test. A Pin-On-Disc tribometer test was used to analyze the wear properties of the surfaces, whereas the microstructure and the morphology of the surfaces as well as the corrosion phenomena were analyzed with the help of SEM / EDX.

The results show that the ceramic properties of these surfaces provide an extremely high wear protection by three orders of magnitude and an increased protection against pitting corrosion. These promising results show that the lightweight construction potential of the AM components can be fully unveiled by utilizing the PEO process.