Additive manufacturing (AM) is a rapidly developing field which potentially decreases the manufacturing costs and enables increasingly complex antenna shapes. Metal-based AM might be particularly useful to manufacture antennas at mm-wave range, because there antennas are physically small enough making additive manufacturing cost efficient, and manufacturing accuracy could still suffice for good electrical performance. In this paper, two additively manufactured and an identical machined fully metallic Ka-band Vivaldi antenna arrays are compared. The manufactured antenna arrays are compared using RF-measurements to conclude the feasibility of AM for manufacturing antenna arrays at mm-wave frequencies. Comparison of the measured radiation patterns and realized gains of each of the antenna arrays between 26 and 40 GHz shows close to identical radiation patterns for all the arrays. A loss in efficiency of 0.51.5 dB is observed in the AM arrays when compared to the machined array due to the used materials and the surface roughness. 

Additive manufacturing (AM) allows for optimized part design, reducing weight compared to conventional manufacturing. However, the microstructure, surface state, distribution, and size of internal defects (e.g., porosities) are very closely related to the AM fabrication process and post-treatment operations. All these parameters can have a strong impact on the corrosion and fatigue performance of the final component. Thus, the fatigue-corrosion behavior of the 3D-printed (L-PBF) AlSi10Mg aluminum alloy has been investigated. The influence of load sequence (sequential vs. combined) was explored using Wohler diagrams. Surface roughness and defects in AM materials were examined, and surface treatment was applied to improve surface quality. The machined specimens showed the highest fatigue properties regardless of load sequence by improving both the roughness and removing the contour layer containing the highest density of defect. The impact of corrosion was more pronounced for as-printed specimens as slightly deeper pits were formed, which lowered the fatigue-corrosion life. As discussed, the corrosion, fatigue and fatigue-corrosion mechanisms were strongly related to the local microstructure and existing defects in the AM sample.

Alloy 21-6-9 is an austenitic stainless steel with high strength, thermal stability at high temperatures, and retained toughness at cryogenic temperatures. This type of steel has been used for aerospace applications for decades, using traditional manufacturing processes. However, limited research has been conducted on this alloy manufactured using laser powder-bed fusion (LPBF). Therefore, in this work, a design of experiment (DOE) was performed to obtain optimized process parameters with regard to low porosity. Once the optimized parameters were established, horizontal and vertical blanks were built to investigate the mechanical properties and potential anisotropic behavior. As this alloy is exposed to elevated temperatures in industrial applications, the effect of elevated temperatures (room temperature and 750◦C) on the tensile properties was investigated. In this work, it was shown that alloy 21-6-9 could be built successfully using LPBF, with good properties and a density of 99.7%, having an ultimate tensile strength of 825 MPa, with an elongation of 41%, and without any significant anisotropic behavior. © 2021 by the authors. 

Manufacturing of functional (ready to use) parts with the powder bed fusion method has seen an increase in recent times in the field of aerospace and in the medical sector. Residual stresses (RS) induced due to the process itself can lead to defects like cracks and delamination in the part leading to the inferior quality of the part. These RS are one of the main reasons preventing the process from being adopted widely. The powder bed methods have several processing parameters that can be optimized for improving the quality of the component, among which, build orientation is one. In this current study, influence of the build orientation on the residual stress distribution for the Ni-based super-alloy Inconel 718 fabricated by laser-based powder bed fusion method is studied by non- destructive technique of neutron diffraction at selected cross-sections. Further, RS generated in the entire part was predicted using a simplified layer by layer approach using a finite element (FE) based thermo-mechanical numerical model. From the experiment, the part printed in horizontal orientation has shown the least amount of stress in all three directions and a general tendency of compressive RS at the center of the part and tensile RS near the surface was observed in all the samples. The build with vertical orientation has shown the highest amount of RS in both compression and tension. Simplified simulations results are in good agreement with the experimental value of the stresses. © 2020 The Authors

Process parameters in laser-based powder bed fusion (LBPF) play a vital role in the part quality. In the current study, the influence of different novel scan strategies on residual stress, porosities, microstructure, and crystallographic texture has been investigated for complex L-shape parts made from nickel-based superalloy Inconel 718 (IN718). Four different novel scanning strategies representing total fill, re-melting, and two different sectional scanning strategies, were investigated using neutron diffraction, neutron imaging, and scanning electron microscopy techniques. These results were compared with the corresponding results for an L-shape sample printed with the conventional strategy used for achieving high density and more uniform crystallographic texture. Among these investigated novel strategies, the re-melting strategy yielded approximately a 25% reduction in surface residual stress in comparison to the reference sample. The other two sectional scanning strategies revealed porosities at the interfaces of the sections and due to these lower levels of residual stress were also observed. Also, variation in crystallographic texture was observed with different scan strategies. © 2022 The Author(s)

With the improvement in technology, additive manufacturing using metal powder has been a go-to method to produce complex-shaped components. With complex shapes being printed, the residual stresses (RS) developed during the printing process are much more difficult to control and manage, which is one of the issues seen in the field of AM. A simplified finite element-based, layer-by-layer activation approach for the prediction of residual stress is presented and applied to L-shaped samples built in two different orientations. The model was validated with residual stress distributions measured using neutron diffraction. It has been demonstrated that this simplified model can predict the trend of the residual stress distribution well inside the parts and give insight into residual stress evolution during printing with time for any area of interest. Although the stress levels predicted are higher than the measured ones, the impact of build direction on the development of RS during the building process and the final RS distributions after removing the base plate could be exploited using the model. This is important for finalizing the print orientation for a complex geometry, as the stress distribution will be different for different print orientations. This simplified tool which does not need high computational power and time can also be useful in component design to reduce the residual stresses. © 2021 by the authors.