(Oak Ridge National Laboratory: Oak Ridge, TN) -- Research into a unique technology to fabricate composite metal parts for a wide range of applications operating in extreme environments across the aviation, space, and energy industries is showing promise for additive manufacturing.

Developed by scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, this technique enables the design of compositionally graded composite parts. These components transition from high-strength superalloys to refractory alloys that can withstand extremely high temperatures—so no welding is needed. Though superalloys and refractory alloys typically can’t be welded or joined with each other, many applications require materials with site-specific, high-temperature, and high-strength properties.

“We can enable compositions that transition from one alloy to another seamlessly,” says Soumya Nag, an ORNL materials scientist who is leading the studies. “We can tune a composite part that we can grade from one end to another and have high-strength and high-temperature capability on each side.”

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