Fabrication of water- and ice-repellent surfaces on additive-manufactured components using laser-based microstructuring methods

Laser patterning techniques have shown in the last decades to be capable of producing functional surfaces on a large variety of materials. A particular challenge for these techniques is the treatment of additively manufactured parts with high roughness levels. The presented study reports on the surface modification of additive-manufactured components of Ti64 and Al-Mg-Sc (Scalmalloy), with the aim of implementing water- and ice-repellent properties. Different laser-based microstructuring techniques, using nanosecond and picosecond pulses, are combined to create multiscale textures with feature sizes between ≈800 nm and 21 μm. The wettability could be set to static water contact angles between 141° and 153° for Ti64 and Al-Mg-Sc, respectively. In addition, surface free energy is analyzed for different surface conditions.