Additive Manufacturing of β-NiAl by Means of Laser Metal Deposition of Pre-Alloyed and Elemental Powders

The additive manufacturing (AM) technique, laser metal deposition (LMD), combines the advantages of near net shape manufacturing, tailored thermal process conditions and in situ alloy modification. This makes LMD a promising approach for the processing of advanced materials, such as intermetallics. Additionally, LMD allows the composition of a powder blend to be modified in situ. Hence, alloying and material build-up can be achieved simultaneously. Within this contribution, AM processing of the promising high-temperature material beta-NiAl, by means of LMD, with elemental powder blends, as well as with pre-alloyed powders, was presented. The investigations showed that by applying a preheating temperature of 1100 degrees C, beta-NiAl could be processed without cracking. Additionally, by using pre-alloyed, as well as elemental powders, a single phase beta-NiAl microstructure can be achieved in multi-layer build-ups. Major differences between the approaches were found within substrate near regions. For in situ alloying of Ni and Al, these regions are characterized by an inhomogeneous elemental distribution in a layerwise manner. However, due to the remelting of preceding layers during deposition, a homogenization can be observed, leading to a single-phase structure. This shows the potential of high temperature preheating and in situ alloying to push the development of new high temperature materials for AM.