Insights on Laser Additive Manufacturing of Invar 36

Abstract

Recently, additive manufacturing (AM) became a promising technology to manufacture complex structures with acceptable mechanical properties. The laser powder-bed fusion (L-PBF) process is one of the most common AM processes that has been used for producing a wide variety of metals and composites. Invar 36 is an austenite iron-nickel alloy that has a very low coefficient of thermal expansion; therefore, it is a good candidate for the L-PBF process. This chapter covers the state-of-the-art for producing Invar 36 using the L-PBF process. The chapter aims at describing research insights of using metal AM techniques in producing Invar 36 components. Like most of nickel-based alloys, Invar 36 is weldable but hard-to-machine. However, there are some challenges while processing these alloys by laser. This chapter also covers the challenges of using the L-PBF process for producing nickel-based alloys. In addition, it reports the L-PBF conditions that could be used to produce fully dense Invar 36 components with mechanical properties comparable to the wrought Invar 36.