Along with application field of additive manufactured (AM) nickel-based superalloys, the efforts to understand effect of manufacturing process on microstructure and in turn microstructural influence on material behavior have been increased continuously. Experimental and model-based investigations have been performed in fields of elasticity, monotonic and cyclic loading as well as fatigue behavior. However, only few numbers of investigation have been seen on creep behavior of such materials despite great importance of creep in application of nickel-based superalloys. Particularly, the significant effect of microstructural anisotropy on creep behavior has not been understood fully yet.

To characterize and model the anisotropic creep behavior of AM manufactured IN738, a new approach has been developed by coupling mesoscale and macroscale models, which enable the inclusion of microstructural characteristic such as texture and morphology and simultaneously allows anisotropic creep prediction on component level. The results have been validated based on tensile and bending creep tests for specimens with different manufacturing parameters.