The world's rapidly evolving threat environment has shown the need for a responsive infrastructure that can address changing requirements with agility and confidence. While this need has often been associated with the design and fabrication of new components, it is noteworthy that there will be instances in which new materials and alloys will be required to meet the demands of new component designs. Past efforts to perform rapid alloying studies have shown some success, but metallurgical properties were adversely affected by changed cooling profiles during production scale-up. The purpose of this research was to perform rapid alloying studies using the Laser Engineered Net Shaping(LENS) rapid manufacturing process. The process can be used for both alloying studies and for the creation of the final components in the same materials and at the same size scale, so prototype attributes would also be present in the final components. Alloying studies included stainless steel enhancements with iron and manganese, as well as iron-manganese and iron-nickel alloy systems. The alloying studies demonstrated the creation of unique microstructures and a feasible method of creating many alloy compositions in small samples limiting both cost and waste. Unfortunately, ongoing porosity problems reduced the impact of the study.
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