2-3. High-throughput synchrotron characterization of additive manufactured alloys

Biao Cai
School of Metallurgy and Materials

Abstract: Synchrotron-based characterization techniques, including computed tomography (CT) and X-ray diffraction, which are non-destructively and fast, are becoming the tools of choice to probe the defects and microstructures of materials in a high throughput and in situ fashion. Laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) is rapidly growing metal additive manufacturing (AM) technology. Characterization, understanding and controlling defects (e.g. porosity) and the associated hierarchical microstructure are key to the performance optimization of AM components. However, large amount of parameters (e.g. alloy composition, laser power/speed, laser scan strategy, post-processing) can influence the microstructures hence the performance. This makes ‘traditional’ microstructural characterization such as EBSD or TEM time-consuming and requires tedious sample preparations, forbidding us to build the processing-microstructure-properties map rapidly and robustly. Our work used high throughput synchrotron based techniques to rapidly optimize LPBF processing parameters achieving targeted microstructures and defect-free products, combined with traditional mechanistic and mechanical