This unique testing method offers economic benefits, sustainability advantages, and the potential to slash the time required to develop new alloys and processing recipes.

Cold spraying is a potentially attractive method for producing accident tolerant fuel cladding, near-net shape nuclear reactor components, and nuclear fuel storage canisters.

A joint Canadian venture launches a new facility with an innovative hybrid approach to cold spray additive manufacturing. The technology platform combines multiple manufacturing steps in a single cold spray additive manufacturing (CSAM) unit, incorporating surface preparation, cold spray forming and buildup, local laser-based thermal treatment, and in-situ sequential robotic machining and semi-finishing.

Led by the National Research Council of Canada (NRC), the Cold Spray Additive Manufacturing (CSAM) industrial R&D group brings together the technology supply chain, end users, and OEMs in an effort to develop and adapt cold spray for additive manufacturing and demonstrate feasibility for targeted applications.

Cold spray was primarily developed for use in applications that are extremely sensitive to high process temperatures. Due to this factor and its other unique capabilities, cold spray is becoming attractive as an enabling technology for 3D printing or additive manufacturing. Current work is focusing on reducing the spot size of cold spray systems to enable them to produce more intricate and highly finished shapes.

This article describes the laser beam texturing (LBT) process and how LBT materials differ from those produced using traditional surface texturing techniques.

This article is the second in a two-part series on cost-saving methods for the production of titanium components. Part 1, published in the September 2012 issue of AM&P , covered a number of powder metallurgy techniques, including press-and-sinter and both cold and hot isostatic pressing. Other near-net shape processes are described here, including additive layer manufacturing (ALM), metal injection molding (MIM), and spray deposition (SD). Examples are also given showing how titanium PM parts compare with cast and wrought components.