Gas Phase Alloying for Wire Fed Joining and Deposition Processes

摘要

Gas is introduced into molten metal during an additive metal fabrication process and/or during a metal fusion process. The gas may comprise a process gas that flows through a tubular feed wire. The amount of process gas introduced can be controlled to vary the composition and/or material properties of metal deposits formed from a molten metal. Material properties such as yield strength, hardness, and fracture toughness can be increased or decreased in specific regions to provide material property gradients that closely correspond to expected requirements of components fabricated utilizing additive and/or fusion processes.

主权项

1. A method of fabricating an object, the method comprising:
providing data representing an object to be fabricated; determining at least one material property to be controlled according to a predefined non-uniform distribution during fabrication of the object; forming a molten pool of metal; solidifying the molten pool of metal to form a metal deposit; forming an additional molten pool of metal on at least a portion of the metal deposit; solidifying the additional molten pool of metal to form an additional metal deposit; adding and solidifying molten pools of metal utilizing the data to form the object represented by the data; and wherein a composition of at least a portion of the molten pools of metal and/or a grain structure of at least a portion of the metal deposits is controlled to provide the predefined non-uniform distribution of the material property in the object.