Microstructural engineering of additive manufactured metals

Currently, additive manufacturing (AM) is revolutionizing the design, production and repair of metallic components. However, the huge potential of microstructural engineering, which is extensively used in conventional manufacturing, has not been systematically explored in metal AM. In this Villum MicroAM project, we aim to introduce microstructural engineering into the metal AM field. This will set the stage for:

• optimizing metals microstructures in-situ during the AM process, as well as ex-situ during post-AM treatments
• predictions of  the changes in properties, while AM components are in use.

Voids are hard to avoid, and local stress are always present when manufacturing components through AM. An additional main task of MicroAM is thus to incorporate the individual and combined effects of voids and local stress into microstructural engineering. While this represents a significant  fundamental challenge, it also opens new design opportunities.