Fabrication of Metallic Multi-Material Components Using Laser Metal Deposition

Meanwhile, Laser Metal Deposition (LMD) is a well-known Additive Manufacturing technology used in various industrial branches as energy, tooling or aerospace. It can be used for the fabrication of new components but also repair applications. So far, volume build-ups were mostly carried out with one single material only. However, loading conditions may strongly vary and, hence, the use of more than one material in a component would yield major benefits. By means of multi-material build-ups, cost-intensive alloys could be used in highly-loaded areas of the part, whereas the remaining part could be fabricated with cheaper compositions. The selection of combined materials strongly depends on the requested thermo-physical and mechanical properties. Within this contribution, possibilities of material combinations by LMD and selected examples of beneficial multi-material use are presented.Mechanical Engineerin