Basic study of fabrication conditions for foam stainless in directed energy deposition

Abstract

Directed energy deposition (DED) is one of additive manufacturing processes attracting attention from various industries. Foam metal is a material having beneficial characteristics, but is difficult to produce with conventional manufacturing system. This study proposes a simple foam metal fabrication method by applying DED. The proposed method produces foam stainless alloy in DED by adding a foaming agent, titanium hydride (TiH2), into the powder material. This study evaluates the foaming behavior of porous stainless in DED by changing the particle size of TiH2 and the number of layers per line, and obtains the optimal number of layers to improve the porosity dispersion.