Effect of post heat treatment on fatigue properties of EBM 3D-printed Ti-6Al-4V alloy

Additive manufacturing by electron beam melting is an affordable process for fabricating near net shaped parts of titanium and its alloys. 3D additive-manufactured parts have various kinds of voids, lack of fusion, etc., and they may affect crack initiation and propagation. Post process is necessary to eliminate or minimize these defects. Hot isostatic pressing (HIP) is the main method, which is expensive. The objective of this paper is to achieve an optimum and simple post heat treatment process without the HIP process. Various post heat treatments are conducted for the 3D-printed Ti-6Al-4V specimen below and above the beta transus temperature ($996^{\circ}C$). The as-fabricated EBM Ti-6Al-4V alloy has an ${\alpha}^{\prime}$-martensite structure and transforms into the ${\alpha}+{\beta}$ duplex phase during the post heat treatment. The fatigue strength of the as-fabricated specimen is 400 MPa. The post heat treatment at $1000^{\circ}C/30min/AC$ increases the fatigue strength to 420 MPa. By post heat treatment, the interior pore size and the pore volume fraction are reduced and this can increase the fatigue limit.

분말 3D 프린팅된 Ti-6Al-4V 합금의 피로특성에 미치는 후열처리의 영향