NASA's JPL Develops Multi-Metal 3D Printing Process 32
yyzmcleod (1534129) writes The technology to 3D print a single part from multiple materials has been around for years, but only for polymer-based additive manufacturing processes. For metals, jobs are typically confined to a single powdered base metal or alloy per object. However, researchers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory say they have developed a 3D printing technique that allows for print jobs to transition from one metal to another in a single object. From the article: In JPL’s technique, the build material’s composition is gradually transitioned as the print progresses. For example, the powdered build material might contain 97 percent titanium alloy and 3 percent stainless steel at the beginning of the transition. Then, in 1 percent increments between layers, the gradient progresses to 97 percent stainless steel and 3 percent Ti alloy by some defined point in the overall 3D printing process.
Kindof yes, but super expensive and difficult (Score:2, Informative)
The Russian aerospace industry has been doing this for quite some time (the Soviets were incredibly advanced with their metallurgy, if not much else) but the process involved basically heat grafting progressively biased alloys onto each other, which proved almost impossible to automate and required a lot of manual intervention by incredibly skilled technicians along the manufacturing chain - it proved so difficult and expensive (even if it WAS revolutionary for the time), they only used the method on an incredibly small number of projects such as the MiG-25 jet interceptor and the early versions of the Soyuz rocket.