Unique material composition obtained by electron beam melting of blended powders

Today powder bed fusion based (PBF) additive manufacturing (AM) methods in metallic materials mainly employ pre-alloyed precursor powders. It was even somehow assumed that in situ alloying of the blended powders will not be effective and such PBF processing will not yield any valuable materials. Recent studies carried out both for laser- and electron beam- based PBF have demonstrated possibilities of using precursors blended from both elemental and alloyed powders. We also demonstrate that composites and alloys indeed can be manufactured from a range of different pre-blended powders with Electron Beam Melting (EBM). It is also possible achieving both composites and alloys by design in different parts of the manufactured components by varying the beam energy deposition strategy. Using sequentially fed precursor powders together with a new powder delivery system also allows manufacturing of the functionally graded materials with gradual composition variation. Blended powder precursors and sequential powder feeding should provide opportunities of manufacturing components with changing composition and material properties in a single manufacturing process. It makes possible modern industrial manufacturing of materials similar to Damascus steels, and other composites and composite-like materials in combinations with alloyed and gradient sections by choice in different parts of components.