The efficacy of additive manufacturing in the repair and remanufacturing of impellers for axial flow pumps

The repair and maintenance of impellers play a critical role in ensuring the efficient operation of various industrial systems, such as pumps, turbines, and compressors. This study investigates the efficacy of additive manufacturing (AM) in the repair, restoration and remanufacturing of impellers through a thorough systematic review of experimental investigations and characterizations conducted in previous studies. Reviews show that additive manufacturing-based repair overcomes the challenges associated with traditional repair methods offering a wide range of materials flexibility which include stainless steels, titanium, nickel super alloy, and FeCrNiCu alloy powder. Experimental investigations, and case studies review show that additive manufacturing processes are efficient for repair and remanufacturing and that laser cladding is the most used additive manufacturing process to repair component. The review also shows that the microstructural properties, hardness and tensile properties of additively repaired components match those of the substrate and in some cases performed better. This study was only limited to additively manufactured-based repair and remanufacturing of turbo machinery and their components.