ICME Enabled Optimization and Qualification for Additive Manufacturing

Additive manufacturing (AM) technology has been greatly improved over the last decade to a critical point of wide application while qualification is still a limiting factor. High quality CALPHAD-based databases for complex multicomponent systems have enabled computational materials design and process optimization for this purpose. At QuesTek, chemical thermodynamics and kinetics as the cornerstone of materials genomic database has been utilized and integrated with a set of digitalized Integrated Computational Materials Engineering (ICME) software tools to achieve improved performance for AM with quantified uncertainty for accelerated qualification. Recent development of this ICME-based optimization and qualification tool has been applied to printed aerospace components using Ni-based Superalloys taking into characteristic factors from the powder, the printing process, and the post-built treatments. This ICME simulation tool with the whole process digitally integrated enables the performance optimization and rapid qualification of the parts which serves the goal of concurrent manufacturing engineering.