Fabrication of Ti3Al-Based Intermetallic Alloy by Laser Powder Bed Fusion Using a Powder Mixture

Kuanhe Li; Xianglong Wang; Haishao Chen; Xiaoxiao Huang; Guanglin Zhu; Ganfeng Tu

doi:10.3390/ma16072699

Fabrication of Ti₃Al-Based Intermetallic Alloy by Laser Powder Bed Fusion Using a Powder Mixture

Materials (Basel). 2023 Mar 28;16(7):2699. doi: 10.3390/ma16072699.

Authors

Kuanhe Li^{1

2}, Xianglong Wang^{3

4

2}, Haishao Chen⁵, Xiaoxiao Huang⁵, Guanglin Zhu¹, Ganfeng Tu¹

Affiliations

¹ School of Metallurgy, Northeastern University, Shenyang 110819, China.
² Mining and Materials Engineering, McGill University, 3610 University Street, Montreal, QC H3A 0C5, Canada.
³ China Machinery Institute of Advanced Materials Co., Ltd., Zhengzhou 450001, China.
⁴ State Key Laboratory for Advanced Forming Technology and Equipment, China Academy of Machinery Science and Technology, Beijing 100083, China.
⁵ School of Intelligent Manufacturing and Electronic Engineering, Wenzhou University of Technology, Wenzhou 325025, China.

Abstract

Due to their light weight and outstanding mechanical properties at high temperatures, Ti₃Al-based intermetallic alloys have driven increasing interest from both academia and industry; however, when additive manufacturing (AM) is applied to them, the outcome is hardly satisfying. In this work, we report a crack-free Ti₃Al-based alloy fabrication by laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) using a mixture of a commercial Ti-48Al-2Cr-2Nb powder and a pure Ti powder. With the aid of a high cooling rate during LPBF, the as-built sample shows a ductile β phase with some partially-melted particles. After the heat treatment, partially-melted particles were dissolved, and the sample showed equiaxed α₂ precipitates in the β matrix. The hardness was 515 ± 38 HV in the as-built sample and 475 ± 37 HV in the heat-treated sample. This study shows a novel strategy to fabricate crack-free Ti₃Al-based alloy using LPBF from powder blends.

Keywords: Ti3Al alloy; additive manufacturing; intermetallic alloy; laser powder bed fusion.

Abstract

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