Evaluation of additive electron beam melting of haynes 282 alloy

Abstract

The electron beam melting (EBM) process is an attractive additive manufacturing technology that can be applied to a number of different materials. However, fabrication of each material requires tweaking and identifying optimal processing parameters. In this study, process parameters were successively varied to identify a processing regime to fabricate the nickel-base (Ni-base) superalloy Haynes 282. Key parameters to minimize porosity and mitigate the potential for cracking were beam velocity, beam current, hatch spacing, line order, and beam focus. Overall, the EBM process window produced a combination of promising microstructure and 99.5% dense material with no observable cracking. Electron backscatter diffraction revealed a crystallographic texture along the [001] direction of the cube orientation aligned with the build direction. Within the grain interiors of the as-fabricated material were observed uniformly distributed γ′ precipitates with a size distribution ranging from ~80 nm spherical to ~190 nm cuboidal particles with an average particle size of ~128 nm. Grain boundary carbides were observed in two morphologies: blocky and thin film–like. Hardness and tensile testing of the as-fabricated EBM material indicated a 10% higher hardness and slightly lower tensile strength compared with the as-annealed wrought form of the Haynes 282 alloy. The EBM alloy exhibited pronounced ductility except at T > 600 °C perpendicular to the build direction. Annealing based on standard wrought heat treatments showed that γ′ precipitates measuring 20–30 nm in average size can be achieved to improve the alloy's high-temperature performance.