Seminar on Multi-Material Laser Powder Bed Fusion: Opportunities and Challenges to Reimagine Metal AM

The Pennsylvania State University, USA

This seminar will be chaired by A/P Moon Seung Ki.

In this seminar, we will discuss recent advancements in metal additive manufacturing (AM) with a focus on multi-material laser powder bed fusion (MM-LPBF), and how this process enables the integration of dissimilar alloys into a single component while leveraging the established benefits of AM such as design freedom, reduced material waste, and rapid prototyping-to-production capabilities.

The ability to combine multiple materials within one build is a long-standing goal for engineering applications operating under extreme environment conditions. Conventional manufacturing is limited to single-material parts, requiring complex assemblies or joins that increase design complexity and introduce potential weak interfaces. MM-LPBF is an evolving form of multi-material AM which offers a pathway to overcome these issues by enabling voxel-level control of material placement with feature sizes in the range of hundreds of microns. This can enable the design and manufacturing of highly complex components with spatially tailored material properties. In comparison to single material processing, MM-LPBF is considerably more challenging to establish ideal processing conditions to avoid undesirable metallurgical defects at the bi-material interfacial region. This talk will first present a framework for rethinking design and manufacturing principles in MM-LPBF: (a) strategies for computational part designs that incorporate multiple distinct material regions, and (b) engineered interfacial regions to mitigate residual stresses, metallurgical incompatibility, and melt pool instability. Finally, this talk will highlight application opportunities where MM-LPBF can provide unique advantages, ranging from high strength and efficient thermal management in the aerospace sector, to combining biocompatibility with mechanical durability in biomedical devices. These developments position MM-LPBF as a transformative approach for manufacturing multifunctional parts tailored to the increasingly complex design demands of 21st-century engineering.