ADVANCING ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING OF NICKEL-BASED SUPERALLOY 718 AND OXIDE DISPERSION STRENGTHENED VARIANTS

Thesis Abstract: Laser powder bed fusion (LPBF), a specialization within additive manufacturing, is a high precision metal powder processing technique that has gained immense attentions in the past decade. The layer-by-layer densification technique provides a unique set of abilities that permits the large-scale production of geometrically complicated structures with highly tunable microstructures. Alloy 718 (718) is one of the most studied materials within the LPBF field due to its extraordinary printability. Although it has a significant industrial and academic focus, there are consequential questions that still need to be addressed because of the immense LPBF design space.

Our works demonstrate the multiple pathways that an alloy system like 718 can be optimized for specific applications by altering the processing parameters or by the addition of oxide particles to create a fine dispersion for high temperature capabilities. Room temperature tensile testing revealed that the processing parameters directly controlled the mechanical properties, allowing tailoring of the tensile strength and elongation to the needs of specific applications. Similar experiments were conducted to exhibit the flexibility of LPBF by incorporating a wider, economic, bimodal powder size distribution that maintained similar mechanical properties. Additions of oxide particles enabled the findings of the reactive nature within this welding process, which ultimately led to a refined oxide dispersion strengthened (ODS) 718 matrix with superior mechanical properties up to 900$^\circ$C. This novel metal matrix ceramic was lastly showcased by producing a complex microlattice structure. Detailed in-situ tensile tests in combination with electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) and finite element modeling revealed that crystallographic reorientation around bending nodes enhanced the global ductility of the material.