Owing to its graded function and agglomeration of contradictory properties over its structure, functionally graded materials (FGMs) are popular as second-generation composites. FGMs are intended to optimize performance capability and survive in a harsh working environment without failure or losing their properties. This article presents a comprehensive review of FGM literature, detailing the evolution and development history, classification, and manufacturing methods for different types of FGMs, citing the merits and limitations of each. Moreover, the current status of the industry-specific applications of each category of FGMs is also summarized and discussed. Furthermore, the key challenges and future scopes of FGM to provide insight into future research directions are also discussed.

The underwater friction stir processing is used for development of aluminum metal matrix composite (AA2219-Y₂O₃) foam. For development of foam, holes with different diameter in the mid thickness of plate were filled with a mixture of TiH₂ and aluminum powder and underwater friction stir processing was used to mix this mixture in aluminum metal matrix composite. Then precursors extracted from the processed zone and heated upto 650°C in a furnace for development of foam. The effect of diameter of hole, number of passes and the tool rotation direction has been studied on the foam cell size and static and dynamic compressive behavior of the foam. It is found that as the diameter of hole increases, the size of pores increases. The distribution of pores is better with higher number of passes and increasing the hole diameter. The quality of foam further improves by reversing the tool rotation direction. The developed foam has different pore size varies from 0.7 to 2.7 mm depends on the FSP parameters. Based on the size of pores and their distribution the relative density ranges from 0.1 to 0.78. The foam produced with 4 mm hole diameter has best static and dynamic compression properties.

In this study, a bi-directional, low-cost, gas metal arc welding (GMAW) based wire arc additive manufacturing (WAAM) setup is used to deposit aerospace-grade super-alloy IN718. The orthogonally designed experiments are carried out to optimize process parameters for bead geometry characteristics. Study result shows that with an increase in heat input, the bead parameters like bead width, reinforcement, dilution, penetration, and weld form factor are increasing, while it has a detrimental effect on weld shape factor and wetting angle. Microstructural examination reveals that at high heat input, coarser grain structure having average grain size of 72.29 µm is obtained while at low heat input, a finer grain structure with average grain size of 32.12 µm along with smaller amount of Laves phases are present. The XRD reveals NbC and TiC phases present in case of low heat input sample which enhances the mechanical properties of deposited material. The multilayer wall structures fabricated at high heat input showed more uniformity in shape with lesser waviness than that fabricated with low heat input. The tensile result of low heat input sample (775.82 MPa) shows higher strength than high heat input sample (741.07 MPa) which is because of smaller grain structure and higher hardness (278.11 HV) as obtained in low heat input sample as compared to high heat input sample (257.26 HV). The EBSD analysis also confirms highly textured surface, more grain boundary lengths and larger grain boundary orientation in low heat input sample imparted better mechanical properties.