The objective of this Statement of Need was to develop methodologies to reuse and recycle strategic refractory metals utilized for additive manufacturing (AM). Refractory alloys of concern include tantalum, niobium, molybdenum, vanadium, tungsten and rhenium, or a combination thereof. We seek projects to explore one or more of the following issues related to AM metal powders:

• Feasibility of using recycled refractory metals
• Changes in the metal powder chemical composition
• Metal powder morphology and microstructure
• Flowability/rheology of metal powders
• Mechanical properties
• Internal defects (i.e., porosity)
• Surface roughness of AM builds utilizing these recycled powders

Scrap refractory material for this work can originate from current AM waste streams (i.e., unused/remaining AM powders, support structures and/or unusable parts with defects), or from scrap resulting from traditional manufacturing processes. Proposers should highlight how they intend to condition the scrap material to control the formation of oxides and hydroxides in the resultant AM powder, to enable high quality AM builds with minimized defects.

Funded projects will appear below as project overviews are posted to the website.