Pitting behavior of a novel stainless steel for additive manufacturing

The last twenty years have seen whirlwind advancement in production of metallic parts via additive manufacturing (AM). This technology has surpassed its origins in manufacturing titanium parts; additive manufacturing is now applicable to a vast range of alloys, including stainless steels. The principal advantage of constructing parts layer by layer is to afford the capacity to produce geometries that cannot be generated by material removal processes. An additional benefit of additive manufacturing is rapid, low-volume production without any tooling investment.
The production of parts that incorporate internal cooling channels is greatly facilitated by the relaxed constraints on achievable geometries that are afforded by additive manufacturing. With additive manufacturing, fine channels may readily be integrated into monolithic designs. Naturally, applying such capability does imply new challenges. Formally, what corrosion behaviors in aqueous media are exhibited by new additive manufacturing alloys? Indeed, the emergence of additive manufacturing as a competing technology has required the development of novel alloys. The limited information available on the chemical and mechanical behaviors of these new alloys introduces uncertainty regarding the durability of these materials in corrosive environments.
The proposed research project is to study the corrosive deterioration of a new stainless steel.

Faculty Supervisor:

Myriam Brochu

Student:

Partner:

Voestalpine Additive Manufacturing Centre Ltd.

Discipline:

Engineering

Sector:

Manufacturing; Professional, scientific and technical services

University:

Polytechnique Montréal

Program: