Additive manufacturing of metallic components – Process, structure and properties

Additive manufacturing of metals

Additive manufacturing (AM) technology has been researched and developed for more than 20 years. Rather than removing materials, AM processes make three-dimensional parts directly from CAD models by adding materials layer by layer, offering the beneficial ability to build parts with geometric and material complexities that could not be produced by subtractive manufacturing processes. Through intensive research over the past two decades, significant progress has been made in the development and commercialization of new and innovative AM processes, as well as numerous practical applications in aerospace, automotive, biomedical, energy and other fields. This paper reviews the main processes, materials and applications of the current AM technology and presents future research needs for this technology.

Additive manufacturing: technology, applications and research needs

The past few decades have seen substantial growth in Additive Manufacturing (AM) technologies. However, this growth has mainly been process-driven. The evolution of engineering design to take advantage of the possibilities afforded by AM and to manage the constraints associated with the technology has lagged behind. This paper presents the major opportunities, constraints, and economic considerations for Design for Additive Manufacturing. It explores issues related to design and redesign for direct and indirect AM production. It also highlights key industrial applications, outlines future challenges, and identifies promising directions for research and the exploitation of AM's full potential in industry.

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Design for additive manufacturing: trends, opportunities, considerations, and constraints

This article reviews published data on the mechanical properties of additively manufactured metallic materials. The additive manufacturing techniques utilized to generate samples covered in this review include powder bed fusion (e.g., EBM, SLM, DMLS) and directed energy deposition (e.g., LENS, EBF3). Although only a limited number of metallic alloy systems are currently available for additive manufacturing (e.g., Ti-6Al-4V, TiAl, stainless steel, Inconel 625/718, and Al-Si-10Mg), the bulk of the published mechanical properties information has been generated on Ti-6Al-4V. However, summary tables for published mechanical properties and/or key figures are included for each of the alloys listed above, grouped by the additive technique used to generate the data. Published values for mechanical properties obtained from hardness, tension/compression, fracture toughness, fatigue crack growth, and high cycle fatigue are included for as-built, heat-treated, and/or HIP conditions, when available. The effects of test...

Metal Additive Manufacturing: A Review of Mechanical Properties

Direct metal fabrication of titanium implants with tailored materials and mechanical properties using electron beam melting technology

Mechanical properties of 3D re-entrant honeycomb auxetic structures realized via additive manufacturing

This paper addresses foams which are known as non-stochastic foams, lattice structures, or repeating open cell structure foams. The paper reports on preliminary research involving the design and fabrication of non-stochastic Ti–6Al–4V alloy structures using the electron beam melting (EBM) process. Non-stochastic structures of different cell sizes and densities were investigated. The structures were tested in compression and bending, and the results were compared to results from finite element analysis simulations. It was shown that the build angle and the build orientation affect the properties of the lattice structures. The average compressive strength of the lattice structures with a 10% relative density was 10 MPa, the flexural modulus was 200 MPa and the strength to density ration was 17. All the specimens were fabricated on the EBM A2 machine using a melt speed of 180 mm/s and a beam current of 2 mA. Future applications and FEA modeling were discussed in the paper.

Properties of Ti–6Al–4V non-stochastic lattice structures fabricated via electron beam melting

Electron beam melting (EBM) is a direct‐metal freeform fabrication technique in which a 4 kW electron beam is used to melt metal powder in a layer‐wise fashion. As this process is relatively new, there have not yet been any independently published studies on the H13 steel microstructural properties. This paper describes the EBM process and presents results of microstructural analyses on H13 tool steel processed via EBM.

Harvey West

Papers

Direct metal fabrication of titanium implants with tailored materials and mechanical properties using electron beam melting technology

Mechanical properties of 3D re-entrant honeycomb auxetic structures realized via additive manufacturing

Properties of Ti–6Al–4V non-stochastic lattice structures fabricated via electron beam melting

Characterization of H13 steel produced via electron beam melting

Compressive properties of Ti-6Al-4V auxetic mesh structures made by electron beam melting