Using suitable scanning strategies, even single crystals can emerge from powder during additive manufacturing. In this paper, a full microstructure map for additive manufacturing of technical single crystals is presented using the conventional single crystal Ni-based superalloy CMSX-4. The correlation between process parameters, melt pool size and shape, as well as single crystal fraction, is investigated through a high number of experiments supported by numerical simulations. Based on these results, a strategy for the fabrication of high fraction single crystals in powder bed fusion additive manufacturing is deduced.

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Generally, the evolution of metallic single crystals is based on crystal growth. The single crystal is either produced by growing a seed single crystal or by sophisticated grain selection processes followed by crystal growth. Here, we describe for the first time a fully new mechanism to generate single crystals based on thermo-mechanically induced texture formation during additive manufacturing. The single crystal develops due to two different mechanisms. The first step is a standard grain selection process due to directional solidification, leading to a pronounced fiber texture. The second and new mechanism bases on successive thermo-mechanically induced plastic deformations and texture formation in FCC crystals under compression. During this second step, the columnar grain structure transforms into a single crystal by rotation of individual grains. Thus, the single crystal forms step by step by merging the originally columnar grain structure. This novel, stress induced mechanism opens up completely new perspectives to fabricate single crystalline components and to accurately adjust the orientation according to the load.

A microstructure has significant influence on the mechanical properties of parts. For isotropic properties, the formation of equiaxed microstructures by the nucleation of new grains during solidification is necessary. For conventional solidification processes, nucleation is well-understood. Regarding powder bed fusion, the repeated remelting of previous layers can cause nucleation under some conditions that are not explainable with classical theories. Here, we investigate this nucleation mechanism with an unprecedented level of detail. In the first step, we built samples with single crystalline microstructures from Ni-base superalloy IN718 by selective electron beam melting. In the second step, single lines with different parameters were molten on top of these samples. We observed a huge number of new grains by nucleation at the melt-pool border of these single lines. However, new grains can only prevail if the alignment of their crystallographic orientation with respect to the local temperature gradient is superior to that of the base material. The current hypothesis is that nucleation at the melt-pool border happens due to remelting microsegregations from former solidification processes leading to constitutional undercooling directly at the onset of solidification. This study offers the opportunity to understand and exploit this mechanism for different manufacturing processes.