EUROPEAN CONGRESS AND EXHIBITION ON ADVANCED MATERIALS AND PROCESSES - EUROMAT 2021

Additive manufacturing (AM) presents unique opportunities to manufacture complex component geometries for high temperature applications. Laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) in particular has gained increasing interest for manufacturing nickel-based superalloys for gas turbine components. It has been established that microstructures obtained after LPBF manufacturing differ significantly from conventionally manufactured materials. This difference means that new heat treatment strategies have to applied to create beneficial microstructures. This study explores different one-step heat treatment cycles, carried out at 1170, 1190, and 1210°C for 1, 2, and 4 h, respectively, for the nickel-based superalloy Hastelloy X (HX). Additionally, the influence of manufacturing the material with different layer thicknesses (40 µm and 80 µm) on both the as-built and heat treated microstructure is investigated. For industrial applications, it would be especially beneficial, if material manufactured using different layer thicknesses could be ‘offset’ through adequate heat treatment procedures so as to reduce re-qualification efforts for high productivity LPBF materials.