Research Status and Prospect of Additive Manufacturing Technology for Invar 36 Alloy

LI Jie; CHEN Yuhua; WANG Shanlin; ZHENG Min

doi:10.3969/j.issn.1674-6457.2026.07.002

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Journal of Netshape Forming Engineering ›› 2026, Vol. 18 ›› Issue (7) : 11-29. DOI: 10.3969/j.issn.1674-6457.2026.07.002

Key Technologies for Precision Forming of High-end Energy and Aerospace Equipment Components

Research Status and Prospect of Additive Manufacturing Technology for Invar 36 Alloy

LI Jie, CHEN Yuhua^*, WANG Shanlin, ZHENG Min

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Abstract

Invar 36 alloy has been widely used in aerospace, precision instruments, and other fields due to its extremely low coefficient of thermal expansion. Traditional manufacturing processes such as casting and forging typically result in high production costs and long lead time for Invar alloy parts. Additive manufacturing technology, with its advantages of forming complex structural components, high material utilization, and short manufacturing cycle, exhibits broad application prospects for the rapid and low-cost production of Invar 36 alloy. The work aims to review the recent research progress on additive manufacturing of Invar 36 alloy both in China and internationally, summarize five main process methods, and finally discuss the current challenges and development trends of Invar 36 alloy additive manufacturing. Although additive manufacturing enables the efficient fabrication of complex Invar 36 components, stably maintaining its low coefficient of thermal expansion still faces challenges such as high sensitivity to process parameters, large residual stress, and numerous internal defects. Future efforts should focus on three key directions: process parameter optimization, post-processing, and online defect control. It is hoped that this work will provide a reference for promoting the integrated additive manufacturing of Invar 36 alloy components with high precision, high strength, and a low coefficient of thermal expansion.

Key words

Invar 36 alloy / additive manufacturing / low coefficient of thermal expansion / process parameters / research status and development trend

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LI Jie, CHEN Yuhua, WANG Shanlin, ZHENG Min. Research Status and Prospect of Additive Manufacturing Technology for Invar 36 Alloy[J]. Journal of Netshape Forming Engineering. 2026, 18(7): 11-29 https://doi.org/10.3969/j.issn.1674-6457.2026.07.002

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Funding

National Key Research and Development Program of China (2024YFC3908100); National Natural Science Foundation of China (52575394); Jiangxi Provincial Natural Science Foundation (20252BAC230001)