Additive Manufacturing of High-Integrity Nickel-based Superalloys for Aerospace Application: Processing, Challenges, and Future Directions

Metal Additive Manufacturing (AM) is an attractive processing route to fabricate near-net shaped components without sacrificing the desired performance. From a sustainability standpoint, AM offers significant savings related to energy, resources (material, machine and man-hours), and overall production costs. Among the different AM methods, laser-directed energy deposition (LDED) has shown enormous potential for industrial exploitation due to its capability to add intricate shapes on large-structures for aerospace applications (e.g. Rocket Nozzles). GKN Aerospace Sweden is at the forefront of developing and maturing AM technologies for aerospace application. In this work, a generic overview of recent research efforts on AM-related process development for Ni-based superalloys (specifically LDED, with powder and wire as the feedstock), process modelling and simulations, and process monitoring and control, will be presented. Additionally, the current challenges with LDED of Ni-based superalloys for aerospace applications will be discussed. Furthermore, new research directions for advancing the development of Ni-based superalloys processed via LDED will be presented.