Nickel-based Inconel 625 is widely used for both low and high-temperature applications. It has several applications in aerospace, marine, chemical, and petrochemical industries due to its high strength, corrosion resistance, good formability, and weldability. With the molten pool’s rapid solidification during laser powder bed fusion (LPBF), the resulting microstructures differ from those expected in equilibrium conditions. Residual stresses, microsegregation, anisotropy, undesirable phases, layered structure, and lower mechanical properties are the challenges that must be addressed before LPBF-ed Inconel 625 parts can be industrially implemented. Heat treatment of Inconel 625 after the LPBF process is widely discussed in the literature, and the proposed heat treatment processes do not address all the challenges mentioned above. For this reason, specific heat treatments should be designed to achieve desired mechanical properties. Five different high-temperature heat treatment procedures were developed and tested in recent work in comparison with the standard heat treatment for wrought alloy (AMS 5599), to study the effect of various heat treatment parameters on the type of precipitates, grain size, room, and elevated temperature mechanical properties, and to develop an elevated-temperature tensile curve between room temperature (RT) and 760°C of LPBF-ed Inconel 625. Four heat treatment procedures showed complete recrystallization and the formation of equiaxed grain size containing annealed twins and carbide precipitates. However, either eliminating the stress relief cycle or conducting it at a lower temperature resulted in microstructures having the same pool deposition morphology with grains containing dendritic microstructure and epitaxial grains. Two different grain sizes could be obtained, starting with the same as-built microstructure by controlling post-process heat treatment parameters. The first type, coarse grain size (ASTM grain size No. G 4.5), suitable for creep application, was achieved by applying hot isostatic pressing (HIP) followed by solution annealing. The second type, fine-grain size (ASTM grain size No. G 6), preferable for fatigue properties, was achieved by applying solution annealing followed by HIP. The mechanical properties at room and elevated temperature 540°C are higher than the available properties in the AMS 5599 for wrought Inconel 625 while maintaining a higher ductility above the average level found in the standards. It can be concluded that the performed heat treatment achieves higher mechanical properties. The values of ultimate tensile strength (UTS), yield strength (YS), elongation, and reduction of area percentages are similar in the XZ and XY orientations, revealing the presence of isotropic microstructure. The ultimate tensile strength values show an anomalous behavior as a function of the temperature. From the room temperature until around 500°C, there occurs a decrease in the yield strength and a slight increase up to 600°C, decreasing sharply at 700°C. An anomaly is also present in relation to the elongation, with a significant decrease in the elongation at temperatures after 600°C.

Laser Powder Bed Fusion (L-PBF) processes are becoming more viable in place of traditional castings in a variety of industries. To compete, novel material grades are being considered with additive manufacturing (AM). In maximizing performance and manufacturing efficiency through AM, a novel approach to heat treatment and Hot Isostatic Pressing (HIP) processing needs to be considered. It has been shown that combining key heat treatment processes with (HIP) by utilizing fast cooling rates can benefit static properties as well as improve turn-around time for HIP processing [1,2]. Argon pressures up to 207 MPa with cooling rates above 170°C per minute are now available in production sized HIP systems to design ideal HIP cycles for high pressure heat treatment. Additive manufacturing with high pressure heat treatment is in need of further investigation for establishing new qualification standards. This study investigates designed High-Pressure Heat Treatment cycles to consider mechanical performance on LPBF CoCr. The combined cycles investigate possible alternatives to historically accepted two step HIP then heat treat processing by combining densification with homogenization treatment into one step. Tensile, fatigue, hardness, microstructure and Charpy impact performance are explored to seek optimal properties and with streamlined thermal processing. It was found that all trial conditions exceeded Electron Beam Melted (EBM) AM CoCr expectation, but traditional processing provided a slight advantage in ultimate tensile stress. One of the novel processes explored, “common” was found to provide a slight improvement on yield stress and direct hardness. Published fatigue data is rare for CoCr, however data generated from this study showed a slight advantage to the “common” HPHT process primarily for lower applied stress levels. Microstructures were comparable across all trial processes. It is recommended that each novel processing route be considered as viable alternatives to traditional processing, but that the “common” processing may prove advantageous for both mechanical properties and streamlined manufacturing.

Hastelloy X is used in turbomachinery and petrochemical applications as it is designed for excellent oxidation and stress corrosion cracking resistance, strength, and stress rupture behavior. This alloy is now being printed via powder bed fusion processes as many industries have developed interests in the benefits additive manufacturing (AM) offers. However as-printed Hastelloy X suffers from material defect formation such as hot cracking. Hot isostatic pressing (HIP) is often applied to improve performance and reliability. Although the conventional HIP process has been shown to eliminate defects, the equipment is unable to cool at desired rates allowing the formation of excessive carbide precipitation, negatively influencing corrosion resistance and toughness. In turn the product is solution treated at a similar temperature while applying rapid gas cooling for performance requirements. With use of uniform rapid cooling available in modern HIP equipment, a high-pressure heat treatment can be applied offering the ability to perform both HIP and heat treatment in one piece of equipment. Microstructure and tensile properties are evaluated and compared to the conventional processing routes. The results demonstrate that the novel high pressure heat treatment approach offers a processing route that is equivalent to or better than conventional methods.

The production process for additively manufactured (AM) metal parts can involve as many as four post processing steps: stress relief, hot isostatic pressing, solution treatment and quench, and tempering or aging. In this paper, the author describes a post processing route for AM parts that combines stress relief, hot isostatic pressing, and solution treatment and quench into a single thermal cycle immediately followed by tempering or aging. The combination of processes is called high pressure heat treatment (HPHT), the benefits of which include shorter total effective cycle time, less downtime between steps, and lower energy consumption.

Hot Isostatic Pressing (HIP) is widely used today to eliminate internal defects in components to achieve improved material properties like ductility and fatigue. With today’s modern HIP systems there are possibilities to incorporate more process steps into the HIP process. These process steps can be stress relief, solutionizing, quenching, ageing, tempering etc. performed in the same equipment during the same cycle which makes a very effective process route. This presentation will focus on the possibilities to perform solutionizing and quench directly in the HIP system for a typical QT steels and evaluate how HIP quench compares to water and oil quench as well as how the austenite to perlite transformation react under pressure.

Austempering heat treatments of steels and cast irons are usually performed using salt bath quenching followed by isothermal transformation of austenite to bainite or ausferrite. High Pressure Gas Quenching (HPGQ) at 1-4 MPa gas pressures is increasingly used to replace oil quenching, but may also be used for austempering. However, to obtain sufficient heat transfer high gas speeds >25 m/s are required. Hot Isostatic Pressing (HIP) is widely used for densifying castings and powder-based materials. Recent equipment developments enable Uniform Rapid Quenching (URQ) under 200 MPa pressure and 0.3 m/s speed, providing uniform cooling. Superplastic conditions during austenitization and initially during URQ reduce residual stresses and eliminate internal porosity in castings and PM materials. Hardenability is increased due to stabilization of the close-packed austenite. The inherent freedom provided by HIP to select optimum levels and rates for temperatures and pressures has been shown to improve mechanical properties and reduce process duration.

Hot isostatic pressing or HIP has been used for diffusion bonding, casting densification, and powder consolidation. Continuous advances in HIP equipment design have allowed increasingly rapid cooling, recently reaching a point where true high-pressure gas quenching is now possible within the HIP unit. This capability further enables the integration of a heat treat and HIP processing. Within the heat treat industry, high pressure gas quenching has been an area of significant development, however, where typical high pressure gas quenching equipment offers quench pressures up to 15 or 20 bar, common HIP pressures are 1000 bar or higher. The ability to quench from HIP pressures appears to offer heat treat options not previously available. This paper examines ultra-high pressure gas quenching (from 1500 bar) within the HIP unit from a heat treating point of view using AISI 4140 steel, a well characterized, medium hardenability alloy, comparing the properties and microstructure of ultra-high pressure gas/HIP quenched steel to conventional water and oil quenched results.