Additive manufacturing with friction welding and friction deposition processes

Most of the commercially available additive manufacturing processes that are meant for fabrication of fully dense metallic parts involve melting and solidification. Consequently, these processes suffer from a variety of metallurgical problems. Processes that can facilitate material addition in solid-state are therefore ideally suited for additive manufacturing. In this work, we explore two new solid-state processes, viz. friction welding and friction deposition, for additive manufacturing. Stainless steel samples produced using these processes showed excellent layer bonding and Z-direction tensile properties. The authors believe that these processes are uniquely capable and can offer significant benefits over existing commercial additive manufacturing processes.