A way to 3D print alloys that are much stronger than conventionally manufactured versions.
Published:
October 7, 2025
4 min read
A new 3-D-printed aluminum alloy is stronger than traditional aluminum, due to a key recipe that, when printed, produces aluminum (illustrated in brown) with nanometer scale precipitates (in light blue). The precipitates are arranged in regular, nano-scale patterns (blue and green in circle inset) that impart exceptional strength to the printed alloy. Credit: Felice Frankel
High-strength aluminum alloys made through additive manufacturing are widely used in industry. To boost their strength, they need a large number of tiny, tightly packed particles that block defects from moving through the metal.
MIT engineers have developed a game-changing aluminum alloy that’s not only five times stronger than regular aluminum but also printable and resilient enough to withstand high temperatures.
Instead of testing millions of material combos the old-fashioned way, the team used machine learning and simulations to fast-track the search. They narrowed it down to just 40 promising mixes, quickly finding the perfect recipe for strength and printability. And it worked. When they printed and tested the alloy, it matched the strength of the best aluminum produced by traditional casting methods.
The researchers envision it powering next-generation products, such as jet engine fan blades, which currently rely on titanium or advanced composites. Why the shift? Titanium, while tough, is over 50% heavier and can be up to 10 times more expensive than aluminum. By replacing it with this high-strength, heat-resistant alloy, manufacturers could create lighter, cheaper, and more fuel-efficient engines, without compromising performance.
Mohadeseh Taheri-Mousavi, who led the research as a postdoctoral fellow at MIT and now serves as an assistant professor at Carnegie Mellon University, emphasized the energy-saving potential of the new material. She noted that using lighter, high-strength alloys could significantly reduce energy consumption across the transportation industry.
John Hart, the Class of 1922 Professor and head of MIT’s Department of Mechanical Engineering, highlighted the broader design advantages of the alloy. He explained that 3D printing enables the creation of complex shapes, minimizes material waste, and supports innovative designs, making the printable aluminum suitable for applications such as advanced vacuum pumps, high-performance vehicles, and cooling systems in data centers.
The spark for MIT’s new super-strong printable aluminum began in a 2020 class taught by Greg Olson, a professor of the practice in materials science and engineering. In that course, students, including Mohadeseh Taheri-Mousavi- learned how to use computer simulations to design powerful alloys.
Olson threw down a challenge: create an aluminum alloy stronger than any printable version made so far. The key? Microstructure. The tighter and more densely packed the tiny particles inside, called precipitates, the more challenging it becomes to work with the metal.
The students ran simulations, mixing aluminum with different elements in countless combinations. But none beat the existing record. As the class wrapped up, Taheri-Mousavi had a bold idea: what if machine learning could crack the code where traditional methods fell short?
“At some point, there are a lot of things that contribute nonlinearly to a material’s properties, and you are lost,” Taheri-Mousavi says. “With machine-learning tools, they can point you to where you need to focus, and tell you, for example, these two elements are controlling this feature. It lets you explore the design space more efficiently.”
Instead of simulating over a million possible combinations of aluminum and other elements, her team used AI to spot patterns and predict promising mixes with remarkable efficiency. In just 40 tries, they landed on a recipe that produced a higher volume of tiny, tightly packed precipitates, the microscopic structures that give metals their strength.
The result? An alloy stronger than any printable aluminum has been identified in previous studies.
To bring this super-alloy to life, the team turned to 3D printing. Unlike traditional casting, where molten aluminum cools slowly, allowing precipitates to grow too large, 3D printing offers rapid cooling, locking in the fine microstructure needed for maximum strength.
They focused on a technique called laser bed powder fusion (LBPF). Here’s how it works: a fine layer of metal powder is spread across a surface, then a laser zips over it, melting the powder in a precise pattern. Because the melted layer is so thin, it solidifies almost instantly. Then, another layer is added and printed the same way, building the object up, one slice at a time.
This rapid cooling is key. It locks in the tiny, densely packed precipitates that give the alloy its exceptional strength, just as the team’s machine learning model predicted. LBPF didn’t just print the alloy, it preserved the very microstructure that makes it extraordinary.
John Hart, co-author of the study and head of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at MIT, emphasized the importance of tailoring materials for additive manufacturing. He explained that 3D printing, especially laser powder bed fusion (LPBF), offers unique advantages, chief among them, rapid cooling.
“Very rapid freezing of the alloy after it’s melted by the laser creates this special set of properties,” Hart noted, highlighting how the process unlocks microstructures that traditional casting can’t achieve.
To test their theory, the team formulated a custom powder blend, aluminum mixed with five other elements, and sent it to collaborators in Germany. Using their in-house LPBF system, the German team printed small samples, which were then shipped back to MIT for rigorous testing.
The results were striking. The printed alloy was five times stronger than its casted counterpart, and 50% stronger than alloys designed using conventional simulations. It also featured a higher volume of small precipitates, the microscopic structures that boost strength, and remained stable at temperatures up to 400°C—a remarkable feat for aluminum.
Taheri-Mousavi, now an assistant professor at Carnegie Mellon University, sees this as just the beginning. “Our methodology opens new doors for anyone who wants to do 3D printing alloy design,” she said. Her vision is bold and poetic: “My dream is that one day, passengers looking out their airplane window will see fan blades of engines made from our aluminum alloys.”
Journal Reference:
- S. Mohadeseh Taheri-Mousavi, Michael Xu, Florian Hengsbach, Clay Houser, Zhaoxuan Ge, Benjamin Glaser, Shaolou Wei, Mirko Schaper, James M. LeBeau, Greg B. Olson, A. John Hart. Additively Manufacturable High-Strength Aluminum Alloys with Coarsening-Resistant Microstructures Achieved via Rapid Solidification. Advanced Materials. DOI: 10.1002/adma.202509507
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