A novel approach for powder bed-based additive manufacturing of compositionally graded composites

In this feasibility study, a novel selective powder raking approach is used for Electron Beam Powder Bed Fusion (EB-PBF) to produce fully dense and compositionally graded composites. The adaption of the chemical composition along the thickness direction of the printed parts is based on the application of a powder blend composed of powders with different particle sizes combined with varying layer thicknesses during EB-PBF. The microstructure of EB-PBF-processed samples with a composition gradient is investigated. The distribution of different phases in the as-built samples is discussed. Based on the results derived in this work, this approach can be easily extended to other powder bed-based AM technologies as well as to other material systems to produce functionally graded materials.