High-performance integrated additive manufacturing with laser shock peening -induced microstructural evolution and improvement in mechanical properties of Ti6Al4V alloy components

High-performance integrated additive manufacturing with laser shock peening (LSP), is an innovative selective laser melting (SLM) method to improve mechanical properties, and refine microstructure in the surface layer of metallic components. Phase, residual stress distribution, surface micro-hardness, tensile properties and microstructural evolution of SLMed and SLM-LSPed specimens in horizontal and vertical directions were examined. In particular, typical microstructural features in the surface layer were characterized by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) observations. Results indicated that surface micro-hardness subjected to massive LSP treatment had significantly improved, tensile residual stress was transformed into compressive residual stress by LSP-induced plastic deformation, and both SLMed specimens in two directions exhibited a good combination of the ultimate tensile strength (UTS) and ductility. Meanwhile, high-density dislocations and a large number of mechanical twins were generated in the coarse alpha' martensites by laser shock wave (LSW), and gradually evolved into refined alpha' martensites. Furthermore, according to the included angle between LSW and the deposited plane, two kinds of LSW-induced atomic diffusion processes at the interfaces between both adjacent deposited layers were presented, and the influence mechanisms of the included angle between LSW and the deposited plane on tensile properties of both SLM-LSPed specimens were revealed. The hybrid additive manufacturing technology combined SLM with LSP realizes the high-efficiency and high-quality integrated manufacturing of the formed metallic components for practical applications.