Optimized High Performance Stainless Steel Powder for Selective Laser Melting Additive Manufacturing (AM)

Additive Manufacturing (AM) promises to be an innovative technology that can enable rapid manufacturing of complex parts at greatly reduced cycle time. With the maturation of selective laser melting (SLM) AM technologies there is increasing interest in applying this manufacturing method to the production of aircraft structural components, many of which are made of high-strength stainless steels. However, recent results from a number of researchers has indicated significant process sensitivities in the SLM processing of high strength stainless steels such as 17-4PH, which if not corrected may limit the application of this manufacturing method. In this Phase I STTR program, QuesTek Innovations, a leader in the field of integrated computational materials engineering (ICME), is partnering with the University of Louisvilles Rapid Prototyping Center to design and develop a new powder specification for high-strength martensitic precipitation-hardenable stainless steel optimized for the unique processing conditions and challenges of Additive Manufacturing processing. QuesTek is uniquely suited to rapidly designing new alloys specifically optimized for AM processing using its advanced Materials by Design stage-gate alloy development process, which is based upon computationally-implemented mechanistic models to predict process-structure and structure-property relationships.