Although additive manufacturing technologies offer manufacturing highly complex parts, the manufactured parts generally have poor surface quality. Owing to low machinability of hard-to-cut additively manufactured parts, a synergistic approach involving advantages of additive manufacturing and machining processes is needed. This study investigates high-speed machining of additively manufactured nickel alloys using hybrid cryogenic cooling methods. For the first time, a comprehensive study has been presented to compare the synergistic effect of hybrid cooling and lubrication strategies in high-speed milling of additively manufactured parts produced with powder bed fusion and directed energy deposition. The results indicate strong dependency of machinability on additive manufacturing methods and post-treatment strategy used. Hybrid methods make high-speed machining of additively manufactured parts possible, resulting in longer tool life and better surface finish. The cooling plays more significant role on tool life than lubrication. However, it was found that the hybrid cooling methods balanced heat removal and lubrication effects.

Recently, additive manufacturing is of interest, and there is a trend to study additively manufactured materials such as Inconel 718 and 316L stainless steel. Additive manufacturing brings the easiness of production of complex geometries, avoids expensive tools, helps achieve interesting microstructures and obtaining promising results for future applications. Since the additive procedure is sensitive to many fabrication variables thereby affecting the microstructure and mechanical properties. This motivation promotes investigating the additively manufactured microstructure of 316L stainless steel and Inconel 718. While 316L stainless steel was fabricated using an electron-based powder bed fusion manner, directed energy deposition was preferred for Inconel 718. Samples were examined utilizing optical and scanning electron microscopes. Results suggest processing of 316L stainless steel gives rise to the same porosity rate as Inconel 718. Bimodal equiaxed austenite grain morphology was observed whereas no dendrite presence was detected for 316L stainless steel. Additive manufacturing types do not cause a significant change in the level of porosity for Inconel 718 alloy. Unlike the case of stainless steel, additive manufacturing results in dendritic microstructure formation in Inconel 718 whereas powder bed fusion-type production triggers a better refinement compared to that of directed energy deposition.