Laser powder-bed fusion of Inconel 718 to manufacture turbine blades

In the frame of additive manufacturing of metals, laser powder-bed fusion is investigated in this paper as an advanced industrial prototyping tool to manufacture Inconel 718 turbine blades at a predesign stage before flow production. Expediting of the evaluation of any upgrade to the part is aimed. To this purpose, possible anisotropy of manufacturing is preliminarily investigated via tensile testing at room and elevated temperature as a function of the sloping angle with the building plate; the normalized strength is given and compared with similar studies in the literature. Positioning and proper supporting in manufacturing are discussed; the parts are further investigated to assess their compliance with the intended nominal geometry.