Tailored material concepts by LPBF - A (promising) solution for new, performance improved military products

The current security situation in Europe and the world shows impressively and painfully future needs and requests for military products manufacturers. An effective but also cost-efficient response to complex threats from a variety of military systems requires solutions that are even more powerful. For example, future guided weapons will have to withstand extreme mechanical loads due to the particular agility required. In addition, thermal stresses are constantly increasing, as the high flight speeds targeted cause local heating of the missile structure to over 300°C due to aerokinetic heating. At the same time, future solutions must have high corrosion resistance due to storage and operational safety. Additive manufacturing, namely powder bed fusion with electron or laser beam, seems to be well suited for manufacturing such challenging high performance structures because it enables functional as well structural (loads) tailoring. Aluminum alloys offer significant advantages over Ti, UHSS or Ni-base material provided they will deliver the required properties. An appropriate solution might be the Sc-modified material concepts ScalmalloyⓇ (AlScMg) und ScancromalⓇ (AlScCr) which fit perfectly to LPBF manufacturing approaches. Consequently, new very performant products might become viable capable of providing any required answer towards those new asymmetric threats.

Presentation language: GER