APWORKS‘s Scalmalloy aluminum alloy has now also been officially approved by the FIA (Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile) and added to the Formula 1 regulation as one of the 3D printing metal materials. Given that APWORKS is based in Germany it seems safe to assume that the current world champion Mercedes team will be making use of the material for its seemingly unbeatable vehicle. Mercedes F1 has been a major adopter of AM for rapid car development throughout its tenure.
“We are proud to see Scalmalloy in the list of approved materials. Scalmalloy still stands head and shoulders above all other additively-processable aluminum alloys on the market, and due to its aerospace pedigree, its performance is backed up by all the evidence necessary to give confidence in design. Its extraordinary balance of strength, ductility, and density makes it the material of choice in high-performance applications. We are already looking forward to broadening the applications further, as our Motorsport customers gain the confidence to apply Scalmalloy in increasingly critical applications” said Jonathan Meyer, Chief Product Officer at APWORKS.
Scalmalloy is an Aluminum-Magnesium-Scandium alloy that impresses with its mechanical properties when being processed in Additive Manufacturing. The aluminum alloy comes with a very high tensile strength (UTS 520 MPa) and yield strength (480 MPa). Because of the low density of the material, it exhibits excellent specific properties, far exceeding those of other aluminum alloys. Scalmalloy also retains excellent ductility (Elongation 13%) and is naturally very corrosion resistant as well as demonstrating a high degree of microstructural stability with respect to thermal aging. This unique combination of material properties has its origin in the fact that it was specifically developed for additive manufacturing and exploits the characteristics of the manufacturing process, making it the world’s first material specifically developed for additive manufacturing.
The material was developed by APWORKS together with Airbus for aerospace applications. The combination of excellent material properties makes Scalmalloy the choice material for high- performance applications, especially in the motorsports industry. High strength and low density enable topology optimized lightweight structural components which can enable better mass distribution to be achieved within the regulation weight limit.
Coupling the outstanding material properties with the design freedom provided by the additive manufacturing processes can enable high-performance parts with a level of functionality previously impossible to achieve.
