Demonstration of Combinatorial Additive Manufacturing Approach for the Design of Alloys

Combinatorial material science takes advantage of technologies that make it possible to prepare a large number of material compositions in a single process, along with efficient assaying and sorting methods, to create and identify new desirable material compositions. Past and current efforts using combinatorial material science to create new alloy compositions have only explored a very limited design space due to lack of suitable material alloying technologies. The proposed project explores the use of powder-based electron beam additive manufacturing (EBAM) as a combinatorial method to design and optimize metallic alloys and heterogeneous structures. In particular, in Phase II we will optimize and implement a multi-material powder deposition system for use in a novel EBAM platform allowing he creation of customizable alloy spanning the full range of alloy compositions. In the course of the associated Phase I RadiaBeam has developed a conceptual design for a selective, multi-material powder deposition system suitable for implementation in electron-beam based additive manufacturing platforms. RadiaBeam has also successfully attracted funding, and entered into a joint venture with a commercial maker of EBAM systems to develop and commercialize the proposed technology. In Phase II we propose to optimize, fabricate and integrate the multi-material deposition capability, allowing engineered graded material joints, in the EBAM platform, and validate its performance.Commercial Applications and Other Benefits Upon development, the proposed multi-material electron beam-based additive manufacturing system can be licensed to aerospace, defense, and OEM AM manufactures. RadiaBeam has already obtained funding from an EBAM system manufacturer, and entered into a joint venture to develop a commercial multimaterial EBAM system.