Metal additive manufacturing (AM), also known as 3D printing, is a disruptive manufacturing technology in which complex engineering parts are produced in a layer-by-layer manner, using a high-energy heating source and powder, wire or sheet as feeding material. The current paper aims to review the achievements in AM of steels in its ability to obtain superior properties that cannot be achieved through conventional manufacturing routes, thanks to the unique microstructural evolution in AM. The challenges that AM encounters are also reviewed, and suggestions for overcoming these challenges are provided if applicable. We focus on laser powder bed fusion and directed energy deposition as these two methods are currently the most common AM methods to process steels. The main foci are on austenitic stainless steels and maraging/precipitation-hardened (PH) steels, the two so far most widely used classes of steels in AM, before summarising the state-of-the-art of AM of other classes of steels. Our comprehensive review highlights that a wide range of steels can be processed by AM. The unique microstructural features including hierarchical (sub)grains and fine precipitates induced by AM result in enhancements of strength, wear resistance and corrosion resistance of AM steels when compared to their conventional counterparts. Achieving an acceptable ductility and fatigue performance remains a challenge in AM steels. AM also acts as an intrinsic heat treatment, triggering ‘in situ’ phase transformations including tempering and other precipitation phenomena in different grades of steels such as PH steels and tool steels. A thorough discussion of the performance of AM steels as a function of these unique microstructural features is presented in this review.

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Correlative microscopy approaches offer synergistic solutions to many research problems. One such combination, that has been studied in limited detail, is the use of atom probe tomography (APT) and transmission Kikuchi diffraction (TKD) on the same tip specimen. By combining these two powerful microscopy techniques, the microstructure of important engineering alloys can be studied in greater detail. For the first time, the accuracy of crystallographic measurements made using APT will be independently verified using TKD. Experimental data from two atom probe tips, one a nanocrystalline Al-0.5Ag alloy specimen collected on a straight flight-path atom probe and the other a high purity Mo specimen collected on a reflectron-fitted instrument, will be compared. We find that the average minimum misorientation angle, calculated from calibrated atom probe reconstructions with two different pole combinations, deviate 0.7° and 1.4°, respectively, from the TKD results. The type of atom probe and experimental conditions appear to have some impact on this accuracy and the reconstruction and measurement procedures are likely to contribute further to degradation in angular resolution. The challenges and implications of this correlative approach will also be discussed.

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