Metallurgy and Solidification Microstructure Control of Fusion-Based Additive Manufacturing Fabricated Metallic Alloys: A Review

The metal-based additive manufacturing (AM), also referred to as metal 3D printing, has drawn particular interest because it enables direct creation, aided by computationally-directed path design, of intricate components with site-specific compositions and geometrical requirements as well as low buy-to-fly ratios. During the last two decades, the objective of this revolutionary technology has been shifting from only “rapid prototyping” to advanced manufacturing of special high-end products or devices, which, in many aspects, outperform conventional manufacturing technologies. For fusion-based AM, significant progress has been achieved in understanding the processing window of macroscopic scales, non-equilibrium metallurgy of mesoscale scales, and grain evolution of microscopic scales. Although the versatile capacity of AM facilitates new avenues for discovering advanced materials and structures, their potential has still not been fully explored . Given the unique non-equilibrium solidification during the AM process, coarse columnar grains with strong textures are usually developed along the build direction, which downgrades the mechanical performance. To push the limits of this digital manufacturing, this review attempts to provide in-depth and comprehensive overviews of the recent progress in understanding the evolution and control of the as-built microstructure that has been made recently and the challenges encountered during the AM process.