Encapsulation of Electron Beam Melting Produced Alloy 718 to Reduce Surface Connected Defects by Hot Isostatic...

Defects in electron beam melting (EBM) manufactured Alloy 718 are inevitable to some extent, and are of concern as they can degrade mechanical properties of the material. Therefore, EBM-manufactured Alloy 718 is typically subjected to post-treatment to improve the properties of the as-built material. Although hot isostatic pressing (HIPing) is usually employed to close the defects, it is widely known that HIPing cannot close open-to-surface defects. Therefore, in this work, a hypothesis is formulated that if the surface of the EBM-manufactured specimen is suitably coated to encapsulate the EBM-manufactured specimen, then HIPing can be effective in healing such surface-connected defects. The EBM-manufactured Alloy 718 specimens were coated by high-velocity air fuel (HVAF) spraying using Alloy 718 powder prior to HIPing to evaluate the above approach. X-ray computed tomography (XCT) analysis of the defects in the same coated sample before and after HIPing showed that some of the defects connected to the EBM specimen surface were effectively encapsulated by the coating, as they were closed after HIPing. However, some of these surface-connected defects were retained. The reason for such remnant defects is attributed to the presence of interconnected pathways between the ambient and the original as-built surface of the EBM specimen, as the specimens were not coated on all sides. These pathways were also exaggerated by the high surface roughness of the EBM material and could have provided an additional path for argon infiltration, apart from the uncoated sides, thereby hindering complete densification of the specimen during HIPing.