Irradiation Testing of 316L Stainless Steel Produced by the MELD Process

The focus of this presentation is to review irradiation and post-irradiation examination of materials produced by the MELD process and laser powder bed additive manufacturing. MELD is an innovative, disruptive, and transformative solid-state thermomechanical process that was pioneered by MELD Manufacturing Corporation. It holds enormous potential for efficient near-net shape fabrication and joining of many alloys. This truly additive solid-state thermomechanical process can be used for manufacturing (of similar or dissimilar metals), repair, and coating. Significant work performed by MELD Manufacturing has demonstrated that this technique permits the manufacturing of materials with equivalent or improved properties compared with wrought materials. Compared with other additive manufacturing technique, MELD is faster, generates a refined equiaxed structure, and does not require the post-manufacturing treatments needed for processes based on melting and resolidification, like powder bed processes.

To use the MELD process for fabrication of Light Water Reactors (LWR), Small Modular Reactors (SMR) and advanced reactor internal components, it is necessary to evaluate the effect of irradiation on the material properties, which is the main goal of this project. This project will also permit the comparison of the material generated with MELD with the same material generated by laser powder bed fusion additive manufacturing. This presentation will review the effect of radiation on 316L material produced via additive manufacturing, including tensile data, fracture toughness, stress corrosion cracking, and metallographic inspection.