Structural-acoustic tailoring of metal structures by laser free-forming

Laser Free-Forming (LFF) is a manufacturing process that facilitates the mixture of different metal alloys and provides new opportunities in structural-acoustic tailoring. In this paper, a brief introduction is given to the LFF manufacturing process and the potential benefits, in terms of process cost and strength and reliability, are discussed. A hydrofoil for an underwater vehicle is used as an example problem to explore strategies for structural-acoustic design optimization and noise mitigation. It is shown through numerical studies that the sound radiation of a hydrofoil can be appreciably reduced by spatially varying its material properties.