Rapid alloy design for additive manufacturing: A high-throughput thermodynamic and kinetic simulation approach
To meet the increasingly ambitious requirements of the mobility sector, new high-performance- and sustainably designed metallic alloys adapted to innovative and advanced manufacturing methods, such as additive manufacturing (AM), are needed. This joint development of material and process poses a multidimensional challenge that requires a systematic approach. In this context, computational methods offer the possibility to study a large number of alloys in terms of the influence of chemical composition and process parameters on the microstructure and their impact on the final properties of the additively manufactured alloy. For this reason, this project’s overall goal is to develop a computational high-throughput approach for rapid and efficient tailored alloy development that can detect underlying process-structure-property relationships by screening thousands of different chemical compositions and process parameters. Within this project, a new computational CALPHAD-based high-throughput methodology will be developed, which captures the influence of the chemical composition and thermal process parameters on the precipitation behavior, mechanical properties, and processability. Next to the alloy performance, a sustainable alloying strategy will be pursued, considering optimizing energy consumption during the AM process and developing recyclable alloys. Subsequently, the validated approach will be used to optimize the nickel-based superalloys for AM, particularly the CM247 alloy, concerning its mechanical properties, processability, and sustainability while simultaneously saving time, resources, and costs significantly during alloy development at Oerlikon. The methodology developed as part of the RADAM project, which also includes modeling the precipitation kinetics in the solid state and their effects on mechanical properties, will be an ideal complement to Oerlikon’s software Scoperta.