• High-strength aluminum alloys like Al 2024 are widely used in aerospace and automotive industries but face challenges in additive manufacturing, such as cracking susceptibility and a narrow processing window.
• Prior attempts to improve these alloys using grain refiners like zirconium (Zr) have shown success in refining grain size but negatively impact ductility, making them unsuitable for aerospace applications.
• There is a pressing need to develop a titanium-modified aluminum alloy through additive manufacturing that is crack-free and offers superior fracture toughness compared to wrought alloys.

The present invention provides a method to develop a fabricated titanium modified aluminum alloy comprising the steps of:

• providing an aluminum alloy in powder form;
• adding titanium as a grain refining agent to the aluminum alloy of step (a) to obtain a titanium modified aluminum alloy, wherein titanium has a weight percentage in the range of 1.9 to 2.5 %;
• depositing layers of the titanium modified aluminum alloy on a substrate using a selective laser melting method (SLM) followed by scanning the layers of the titanium modified aluminum alloy;
• performing solution heat treatment of the titanium modified aluminum alloy of step (c) in a vacuum furnace at temperature in the range of 470°C and 500°C for a time period in the range of 45 minutes to 1.5 hours; (refer Fig. 1)
• quenching the heat treated titanium modified aluminum alloy of step c); and (f) subjecting the heat treated titanium modified aluminum alloy of step (d) to an aging treatment at 180 – 200°C for 9-11 hours to develop a fabricated titanium modified aluminum alloy, wherein depositing layers of the titanium modified aluminum alloy on the substrate is done horizontally to loading direction (LD).