Functionally graded material produced using laser metal deposition process

Functionally graded materials (FGM) are advanced form of materials with improved properties when compared to the traditional composite materials. Two materials which cannot be alloyed because of wide difference in their melting point can readily be combined using laser metal deposition process which is an additive manufacturing process. Laser metal deposition (LMD) process can handle more than one material simultaneously which makes it a candidate manufacturing process for producing FGM. LMD is capable of producing three dimensional (3D) part directly from the 3D image of the part by adding materials layer by layer thereby reducing the buy-to-fly ratio of aerospace part. In this chapter, laser metal deposition of titanium alloy composite are described.