Micro-, Meso- and Macrostructural Design of Bulk Metallic and Polymetallic Materials by Wire-Feed Electron-Beam Additive Manufacturing

Abstract

Abstract Additive manufacturing of metal materials is one of the most promising technologies in modern industry. A wide variety of current additive manufacturing techniques allow rapid prototyping and industrial production of different-sized products from various structural and functional materials. The structure and physical-mechanical properties of the metal products fabricated by electron-beam additive manufacturing (EBAM) within nonstationary metallurgy in a local molten pool often differ from those of the products fabricated by conventional metallurgy due to different crystallization mechanisms, sequence and completeness of phase transformations, and heterogeneous/homogeneous chemical composition of the resulting material. The possibility to control local metallurgical processes in the molten pool is the key advantage of the EBAM technology. It allows one to control the structure, composition, and properties of mono- and polymetallic, graded, composite and heat-resistant materials in order to obtain products with the desired chemical composition, macroscopic architecture, and microscopic structural parameters. As any new industrial technology, the EBAM method requires the development of scientifically based approaches to the choice of materials and production conditions. Here we provide an overview of the scientific approaches developed for electron-beam additive manufacturing of products from metals and alloys using wire or rods as a feedstock. The range of the studied materials includes additive materials based on copper, bronze, aluminum, nickel, titanium alloys, and different steels, as well as aluminum-based functionally graded materials and copper-based graded materials. The most important research findings are summarized.