The need for advanced material processing to reduce manufacturing cost and cycle times has never been as great as at this time in our nation’s history. Howmet Corporation has licensed and modified the Osprey, or spray forming, process to produce high quality nickel base superalloys for gas turbine engine applications. The modified process, known as the “Spraycast-X™” process, combined vacuum induction melting with high purity argon gas atomization to produce billet and ring shape products. Process parameters were established to produce fine grain size (ASTM 6-8) billet up to 10” (254 mm) in diameter and ring shape preforms up to 33” (838 mm) in diameter. Mechanical properties of HIP’ed Spraycast-X plus isoforged U720 and Spraycast-X and HIP’ed MERL 76 (no Hf) were comparable to their wrought counterparts. Mechanical property data for ring rolled IN718, René 41, and Waspaloy were all above specification limits.

The Spraycast-X@ process has been developed by Howmet, and verified on a wide range of nickel-base superalloys, including IN718, for manufacturing thick wall (-3") structures for jet engine rings and cases. This process yields a material and product that is clean and eliminates ring rolling. Other features of the product produced by the Spraycast-X' process are its fine homogeneous microstructure, improved machinability, and ability to process previously non-forgeable alloys. The Spraycast-X@ process results in lead-time reductions of up to 75% over ring rolled components. This process is capable of manufacturing parts that may be used in the spray + HIP form, as a replacement for ring rolling, with equivalent or improved mechanical properties. Rapid prototyping of parts is a Spraycast-X@ attribute, due to the rapid turn time of the process and its inexpensive tooling. Apart from the technical and delivery benefits of the Spraycast-X@ process, there are economic benefits that indicate savings of up to 30% over its ring rolled counterpart. A description of the process, along with data which substantiate these claims, will be presented.

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