The work is devoted to a review of modern achievements in the field of wire-feed electron beam additive manufacturing. The features of structure formation in aluminum, copper, titanium, nickel-based alloys, and steels during 3D printing are shown. Aspects of directional solidification during the production of components from various metals and alloys are considered. The prospects for obtaining composite and functionally graded materials based on various metals and alloys using wire-feed electron beam additive manufacturing are determined. The regularities of the structure modification and hardening of additively manufactured materials by the method of friction stir processing were considered. The main purpose of the review is to present additive manufacturing methods, the main focus being on the wire-feed electron beam additive manufacturing of metal alloys.

Friction stir welding (FSW) on a heavy gauge sheet of a hereditary fine-grained Al-Mg-Sc-Zr alloy was carried out to study the specifics of plasticized metal flow and microstructural evolution in different sections and zones of the joint. It was found that the stir zone (SZ) macrostructure may contain either a single or many nugget zones depending on the metal sheet thickness and the seam length. The effect of grain kinking in a thermomechanically affected zone (TMAZ) under pressure from the stir zone metal was discovered. The stir zone metal was fine-grained but had a microhardness lower than that of the base metal, which may be explained by the overaging effect of FSW on the Al₃Sc precipitates. The tensile strength of the joint was almost equal to that of the base metal (BM). The grain size distributions were obtained in different sections below the sheet surface and away from the exit hole, which allowed us to suggest the specific adhesion-assisted layer-by layer metal transfer mechanism in FSW.

This work explores the possibility of using friction stir processing to harden the Ti-6Al-4V titanium alloy material produced by wire-feed electron beam additive manufacturing. For this purpose, thin-walled workpieces of titanium alloy with a height of 30 cm were printed and, after preparation, processed with an FSW-tool made of heat-resistant nickel-based superalloy ZhS6U according to four modes. Studies have shown that the material structure and properties are sensitive to changes in the tool loading force. In contrast, the additive material’s processing direction, relative to the columnar grain growth direction, has no effect. It is shown that increasing the axial load leads to forming a 𝛽-transformed structure and deteriorates the material strength. At the same time, compared to the additive material, the ultimate tensile strength increase during friction stir processing can achieve 34–69%.