For the past two years, officials and teams from Formula 1 have negotiated to come up with a new set of regulations for the 2021 racing season. Among the many updates made to the Formula 1 2021 technical regulations is the approval of two additive manufacturing metal powders developed by Colorado-based Elementum 3D, A6061-RAM1 and A2024-RAM2.
The two high-strength aluminum alloys are compatible with additive manufacturing and boast superior performance compared to traditionally wrought alloys. Elementum 3D, which works at the cutting edge of AM material development, looking at metals, ceramics and composites, adapted the high-strength alloys for AM, something which had previously been challenging because of the metals’ tendency to hot tear during the solidification process, which led to compromised mechanical properties.
