Additive manufacturing of metal alloys for aerospace application: design, production, repair and optimization

In the industrial field the employment of innovative fabrication technologies is emerging to the purpose of cost reduction and flexibility. In particular, great interest is addressed to additive manufacturing (AM) techniques, which allow to obtain complex parts based on CAD models. AM enables the fabrication of parts with complex geometry that are impractical to be manufactured using conventional subtractive manufacturing methods. Basically, all of the AM techniques employ the same basic principle: the final component is fabricated by means of layer by layer addition of the material. Today, in addition to plastic material, several metallic materials including steel, aluminium, nickel-based superalloys, cobalt-base alloys and titanium alloys may be processed to full dense parts with properties complying with the requirements of industrial applications. There has been particular interest in aerospace and biomedical industries owing to the possibility for high performance parts with reduced overall cost for manufacturing. For the aerospace industry this could lead to a reduction of required raw materials used to fabricate an in-service component, which is known as the “buy-to-fly” ratio. AM could also lead to new innovations for lightweight structures for several applications. Repairing and overhaul of in-service parts is possible as well. Furthermore, AM provides the potential to enable novel product design which would be impossible to be managed using conventional subtractive processes... [edited by Author]