Laser Powder Bed Fusion in-situ alloying of Ti-5%Cu alloy: Process-structure relationships

Additive manufacturing has emerged as a promising method for developing new Ti-based alloys. However, very few works have been dedicated to the in-situ synthesis of Ti-Cu alloys using Laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) method. The current work investigates the correlations between the volumetric energy density (VED) and some structural features of the in-situ Ti-5 wt.% Cu alloys produced by LPBF of the elemental powders. The results highlighted the importance of selecting the size of constituents in accordance with their thermophysical properties. It was also shown that crystallite size and lattice distortion of the a phase increased with increasing the VED. These were attributed to the higher temperature and lower cooling rate of the melt pools as well as improved particles melting and copper dissolution in the titanium lattice at higher VEDs. Isotropy of the microstructure was also improved at higher VEDs. (C) 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

This study investigates the correlations between volumetric energy density and structural features of in-situ Ti-5 wt.% Cu alloys produced by Laser powder bed fusion method, highlighting the importance of selecting constituent sizes based on thermophysical properties. Results show that with increasing volumetric energy density, crystallite size and lattice distortion of the a phase in the alloy increase, leading to improved isotropy of the microstructure at higher VEDs.