Additive manufacturing (AM) is an attractive set of processes that are being employed lately to process specific materials used in the fabrication of electrical machine components. This is because AM allows for the preservation or enhancement of their magnetic properties, which may be degraded or limited when manufactured using other traditional processes. Soft magnetic materials (SMMs), such as Fe–Si, Fe–Ni, Fe–Co, and soft magnetic composites (SMCs), are suitable materials for electrical machine additive manufacturing components due to their magnetic, thermal, mechanical, and electrical properties. In addition to these, it has been observed in the literature that other alloys, such as soft ferrites, are difficult to process due to their low magnetization and brittleness. However, thanks to additive manufacturing, it is possible to leverage their high electrical resistivity to make them alternative candidates for applications in electrical machine components. It is important to highlight the significant progress in the field of materials science, which has enabled the development of novel materials such as high-entropy alloys (HEAs). These alloys, due to their complex chemical composition, can exhibit soft magnetic properties. The aim of the present work is to provide a critical review of the state-of-the-art SMMs manufactured through different AM technologies. This review covers the influence of these technologies on microstructural changes, mechanical strengths, post-processing, and magnetic parameters such as saturation magnetization (M_S), coercivity (H_C), remanence (B_r), relative permeability (M_r), electrical resistivity (r), and thermal conductivity (k).

In this paper, the best laser powder bed fusion (L-PBF) printing conditions for FeSi steels with two different Si content (3.0% and 6.5%) are defined. Results show very strict processing window parameters, following a lack of fusion porosity at low specific energy values and keyhole porosity in correspondence with high specific energy values. The obtained microstructure consists of grains with epitaxial growth starting from the grains already solidified in the underling layer. This allows the continuous growth of the columnar grains, directed parallel to the built direction of the component. The magnetic behaviour of FeSi6.5 samples, although the performances found do not still fully reach those of the best commercial electrical steels (used to manufacture magnetic cores of electrical machines and other similar magnetic components), appears to be quite promising. An improvement of the printing process to obtain thin sheets with increased Si content, less than 0.5 mm thick, with accurate geometry and robust structures, can result to an interesting technology for specific application where complex geometries and sophisticated shapes are required, avoiding mechanical machining processes for electrical steel with high silicon content.

Laser Powder Bed Fusion (L-PBF) is a widespread additive manufacturing technology in industrial applications, for metal components manufacturing. Maraging steel is a special class of Fe-Ni alloys, typically used in the aerospace and tooling sectors due to their good combination of mechanical strength and toughness. This work analyses the heat treatment effect on the microstructure and hardness value of 300-grade maraging steel manufactured by the L-PBF process. The considered heat treatment consists of a solution annealing treatment followed by quenching and ageing hardening treatment. The effect of ageing temperature is reported, in a wide temperature range. Results show that solution annealing treatment fully dissolves the solidification structure caused by the L-PBF process. Moreover, the ageing hardening treatment has a significant impact on the hardness, hence on strength, of L-PBF maraging steel. The optimal ageing conditions for the L-PBF maraging steel are identified and reported: in particular, results show that the hardness of 583 HV is achieved following ageing treatment at 490 °C for 6 hours. A higher treatment temperature leads to over-ageing resulting in a decrease of hardness. Conversely, an excessive ageing time does not seem to affect the hardness value, for the ageing temperature of 490 °C.

EUROFER97 steel plates for nuclear fusion applications are usually manufactured by hot rolling and subsequent heat treatments: (1) austenitization at 980 °C for 30 min, (2) rapid cooling and (3) tempering at 760 °C for 90 min. An extended experimental campaign was carried out with the scope of improving the strength of the steel without a loss of ductility. Forty groups of samples were prepared by combining cold rolling with five cold reduction ratios (20, 40, 50, 60 and 80%) and heat treatments at eight different temperatures in the range 400–750 °C (steps of 50 °C). This work reports preliminary results regarding the microstructure and mechanical properties of all the cold-rolled samples and the effects of heat treatments on the samples deformed with the greater CR ratio (80%). The strength of deformed samples decreased as heat treatment temperature increased and the change was more pronounced in the samples cold-rolled with greater CR ratios. After heat treatments at temperature up to 600 °C yield stress (YS) and ultimate tensile strength (UTS) of samples deformed with CR ratio of 80% were significantly larger than those of standard EUROFER97 but ductility was lower. On the contrary, the treatment at 650 °C produced a fully recrystallized structure with sub-micrometric grains which guarantees higher strength and comparable ductility. The work demonstrated that EUROFER97 steel can be strengthened without compromising its ductility; the most effective process parameters will be identified by completing the analyses on all the prepared samples.

The inter-critically reheated grain coarsened heat affected zone (IC GC HAZ) has been reported as one of the most brittle section of high-strength low-alloy (HSLA) steels welds. The presence of micro-alloying elements in HSLA steels induces the formation of microstructural constituents, capable to improve the mechanical performance of welded joints. Following double welding thermal cycle, with second peak temperature in the range between Ac1 and Ac3, the IC GC HAZ undergoes a strong loss of toughness and fatigue resistance, mainly caused by the formation of residual austenite (RA). The present study aims to investigate the behavior of IC GC HAZ of a S355 steel grade, with the addition of different vanadium contents. The influence of vanadium micro-alloying on the microstructural variation, RA fraction formation and precipitation state of samples subjected to thermal cycles experienced during double-pass welding was reported. Double-pass welding thermal cycles were reproduced by heat treatment using a dilatometer at five different maximum temperatures of the secondary peak in the inter-critical area, from 720 °C to 790 °C. Although after the heat treatment it appears that the addition of V favors the formation of residual austenite, the amount of residual austenite formed is not significant for inducing detrimental effects (from the EBSD analysis the values are always less than 0.6%). Moreover, the precipitation state for the variant with 0.1 wt.% of V (high content) showed the presence of vanadium rich precipitates with size smaller than 60 nm of which, more than 50% are smaller than 15 nm.

AISI 904L is a super-austenitic stainless steel that is remarkable for its mechanical properties and high corrosion resistance, which strictly depend on its chemical composition and microstructural features. The recrystallization process and grain growth phenomena play key roles in achieving high levels of material quality, as often requested by customers for specific applications. In this paper, the evolution of the microstructure and hardness values after cold rolling and subsequent annealing is reported, with the aim of optimizing the thermomechanical treatment conditions and improving the efficiency of the production process. The investigation was focused on three different cold reduction ratios (50%, 70% and 80%), while combining different annealing temperatures (950, 1050 and 1150 °C) and soaking times (in the range of 20–180 s. The test results were organized using a data analysis and statistical tool, which was able to show the correlation between the different variables and the impacts of these on recrystallization and grain growth processes. For low treatment temperatures, the tested soaking times led to partial recrystallization, making this condition industrially unattractive. Instead, for the higher temperature, full recrystallization was achieved over a short time (20–40 s), depending on the reduction ratio. Regarding the grain growth behavior, it was found to be independent of the reduction ratio; for each treatment temperature, the grain growth showed a linear trend as a function of the soaking time only. Moreover, the static recrystallization kinetics were analyzed using a statistical analysis software program that was able to provide evidence indicating the most and least influential parameters in the process. In particular, taking into consideration the hardness values as output data, the temperature and soaking time were revealed to have major effects as compared with the reduction ratio, which was excluded from the statistical analysis. The prediction approach allowed us to formulate a regression equation in order to correlate the response and terms. Moreover, a response optimizer was used to predict the best solution to get as close as possible to the hardness target required by the market.