Economical, On-Demand GRCop Alloy Production

The manufacturing process, building on techniques showcased in LEW-TOPS-151, employs a novel acoustic mixing technique to coat spherical C103 powder particles with a uniform distribution of sub-200 nanometer yttria particles. During laser powder bed fusion additive manufacturing, layer-by-layer remelting disperses these yttria particles uniformly throughout the component microstructure. This eliminates the expensive, time-consuming mechanical alloying steps traditionally required for ODS alloys while enabling near-net-shape fabrication of complex geometries. Performance testing demonstrates substantial improvements: GRC103y exhibits double the yield strength at 800°C and 1.5x the yield strength at 1,400°C compared to baseline C103. The alloy also shows superior thermal stability: after one hour at 1,500°C, GRC103y retains 90% of its room temperature strength compared to only 67% for C103. Preliminary creep testing at 1,300°C and a stress of 50 MPa indicates significant improvements in creep resistance by 2539 times over baseline C103. Furthermore, GRC103y maintains excellent formability, allowing manufacturers to use traditional fabrication methods when desired. While NASA originally developed GRC103y for rocket propulsion and hypersonic vehicle applications, the alloy offers value across multiple industries. Aerospace companies can achieve weight savings or push systems to higher temperatures, while the alloy's compatibility with commercial oxidation coatings makes it suitable for environments requiring oxidation protection. GRC103y is currently available for patent licensing.

NASA's new Ni-based superalloy uses a powder metallurgy (PM) composition that inhibits the deleterious gamma-prime to gamma-phase transformation along stacking faults during high temperature creep deformation. Ni-base superalloys have excellent high temperature properties, mostly due to the presence of coherent precipitates. At higher temperatures, these precipitates are defeated by the diffusional shear dislocations producing intrinsic and extrinsic faults. Recent studies have found that, during deformation of turbine disk alloys at high temperature, Co, Cr, and Mo segregate to these faults (removing Ni and Al) inside the strengthening precipitates of these alloys. This represents a local phase transformation from the strengthening precipitate to the weaker matrix phase. Therefore, this elemental segregation significantly weakens the ability of a precipitate to withstand further deformation, producing faster strain rates in the alloy at higher temperatures. This invention presents a solution to prevent this type of segregation along these two faults to improve the creep properties of turbine disks and similar Ni-based alloys. By alloying a specific amount of eta phase formers (Ti, Ta, Nb, and Hf), the phase transformation to can be eliminated along 2-layer extrinsic stacking faults (SESFs) in precipitates without precipitating bulk eta phase. Also, by adding a certain amount of D019 formers (Mo and W), the phase transformation to can be mitigated along 1-layer intrinsic stacking faults (SISFs) without producing bulk sigma phase. This alloy composition incorporates both strengthening methods for use in jet turbine disks, though the composition has applications in other high-stress and/or high-temperature environments as are found in power plants, space launch systems, and other critical structural applications.

Via this NASA innovation, a product is first heated to a temperature within the range of 204 to 343 degrees C for an extended soak of up to 16 hours. The product is then slowly heated to a second temperature within the range of 371 to 482 degrees C for a second soak of up to 12 hours. Finally, the product is slowly cooled to a final soak temperature of 204 to 343 degrees C before cooling to room temperature. The product so treated will exhibit greatly improved formability. To date, the low formability issue has limited the use of lightweight Al-Li alloys for large rocket fuel tank dome applications. Manufacturing a dome by stretch forming typically requires multiple panels as well as multiple welding and inspection steps to assemble these panels into a full-scale fuel tank dome. Complex tensile and bending stresses induced during the stretch forming operations of Al-Li alloys have resulted in high rates of failure for this process. To spin form a large rocket dome, the spin blank must be prepared by joining smaller plates together using friction stir welding. However, friction stir welding produces a distinct metallurgical structure inside and around the friction stir weld that makes it very susceptible to cracking during spin forming.

This method leverages advanced computational modeling to evaluate localized heating conditions and fusion metrics and quantify defect risks dynamically, allowing for optimized build files and process adjustments that drastically improve the final component. The model can be trained using PPF and print samples from an AM machine's prior builds to learn correlations between the machine's instructions, behavior during build, and final product quality. By integrating machine feedback metrics, model-based thermal and fusion metrics, and in-situ sensor metrics, the model learns predictive signatures that allow it to quantify localized defect probability in PBF laser beam metals. Manufacturers can employ this method to understand the reproducibility of their prints and perform defect compensation before parts are fully deployed, improving quality, reliability, and success. Particularly useful to industries that require stringent certification of safety-critical components, such as the aerospace, space, medical, and automotive sectors, this method can be flexibly deployed globally or adapted to specific AM machines. By predicting the probability of defects before and during production, 3D printing service providers and AM equipment manufacturers can save significant amounts of time and money while drastically reducing part variability. This predictive capability also allows organizations to certify parts faster and ensure consistent material properties, which is essential for meeting rigorous performance and safety standards. This is method is currently available for patent licensing (no software included).

Dispersion Enhanced Aluminum Alloys improve the additive manufacturing performance of high-strength aluminum alloys by modifying the alloy powder with uniformly dispersed nano-sized ceramic particles. Building on the dispersion and acoustic mixing methods developed during the creation of NASA Glenn's GRX-810 technology, researchers use an acoustic field to attach nanoscale alumina dispersoids to the surface of each aluminum alloy powder particle. During mixing, acoustic energy creates rapid micro-vibrations that cause the alumina particles to collide with the metal powder, embed against its surface, and distribute into a uniform shell that surrounds each particle. This produces a composite powder in which every aluminum particle carries its own evenly spaced ceramic nucleation sites. When the composite powder is delivered into an additive manufacturing process such as laser powder bed fusion or directed energy deposition, the aluminum alloy melts while the alumina dispersoids remain solid due to their significantly higher melting temperature. As the molten pool flows and mixes, the dispersoids remain suspended throughout the liquid region. During solidification, these solid particles interrupt grain growth and serve as nucleation points that promote the formation of fine equiaxed grains. This refined microstructure distributes thermal stresses more uniformly and disrupts the crack initiation mechanisms that typically occur in high-strength alloys like AA 2050. By stabilizing the alloy during solidification, the technology enables these advanced materials to be printed with greater reliability, improved geometric control, and more consistent mechanical behavior across the final product. The enhanced alloy technology is available for patent licensing.