Effect of selective laser melting process parameters and heat treatment on microstructure and properties of titanium alloys produced from elemental powders

Abstract

This work investigates Selective Laser Melting (SLM) process as a method of in-situ synthesis of Ti-5Al and Ti-6Al-4V alloys using elemental powder mixture. Elemental spherical powders were used to prepare a powder mixture and the samples were produced by SLM process using different volume energy densities. The effects of volume energy density on the samples’ relative density, chemical composition, microstructure and microhardness before and after heat treatment have been studied. It was shown that volume energy density significantly effects the density and microstructure of Ti-5Al and Ti-6Al-4V alloys, as well as, the microhardness of obtained Ti-6Al-4V.