Tailor-made functional composite components using additive manufacturing and hot isostatic pressing

The combination of Additive Manufacturing (AM) and Hot Isostatic Pressing (HIP) offers great potential for industrial applications. Skilfully connecting AM and HIP creates a manufacturing process that unites the advantages of the two approaches. We demonstrate a production route for composite components by combining AM and HIP: a HIP capsule made of corrosion resistant steel is additively manufactured using Powder Bed Fusion with Laser Beam (LPBF). Before LPBF, the distortion and shrinkage of the capsule due to HIP is compensated by optimising the capsule's geometry using Finite Element (FE) simulation of the HIP process. The capsule is filled with steel powder and manufactured by a conventional powder HIP. After HIP, the capsule remains as an outer layer on the component, so that a functional net-shape composite component is produced. Subsequent investigations show that a complex extruder screw segment can be successfully produced with a geometrical deviation smaller than 1.5%.