3D Printing with Nickel Alloy: Norsk Titanium and QuesTek Innovations collaborate

Norsk Titanium and QuesTek Innovations have announced a collaboration to advance the use of nickel alloy wires in Directed Energy Deposition (DED) additive manufacturing. This development work offers manufacturers an alternative to castings for large aerospace and industrial components by bypassing significant supply chain delays and reducing long lead times.

QuesTek, an expert in materials engineering, will work with Norsk to optimize the use of nickel wire in additive manufacturing. Using its ICMD software platform, QuesTek can model a variety of heat treatment options necessary to achieve desired properties such as strength and corrosion resistance.

Norsk, as a leader in 3D metal printing, will apply QuesTek’s models to its Rapid Plasma Deposition (RPD) technology and share real-world test results with its end customers.

“Our customer contacted us to ask if we would be willing to tackle this problem in support of a US government need. With our partner QuesTek, we are ready to rise to the occasion,” says Norsk vice president of product development Nicholas Mayer. “We reached out to QuesTek to support the tight timelines. Their modeling capability allows us to dramatically reduce the amount of traditional testing that would be required to develop the additive parameters and subsequent heat treatment.”

QuesTek uses its ICMD platform and decades of experience to minimize the number of test cases required.

“This is a very fitting challenge for QuesTek’s team of materials engineering experts and our ICMD software platform,” says QuesTek business development director Jeff Grabowski. “We look forward to working with Norsk’s team to advance the boundaries of additive manufacturing as quickly as possible to remove delays in the industrial supply chain and provide an urgent solution to the government.”

Norsk and QuesTek already collaborated in 2018 and 2019 on titanium alloys for Norsk’s RPD process. The results of this partnership will be presented at the 54th Paris Airshow.