Mechanical properties enhancement of additive manufactured Ti-6Al-4V by machine hammer peening

Wire + Arc Additive Manufacturing (WAAM) is a technology potentially offering reduction of material wastage, costs and shorter lead-times. It is being considered as a technology that could replace conventional manufacturing processes of Ti-6Al-4V, such as machining from wrought or forged materials. However, WAAM Ti-6Al-4V is characterized by coarse β-grains, which can extend through several deposited layers resulting in strong texture and anisotropy. As a solution, inter-pass cold rolling has been proven to promote grain refinement, texture modification and improvement of material strength by plastically deforming the material between each deposited layer. Nevertheless, with the increased interest in the WAAM technology, the complexity and size of the deposited parts has increased, and its application can be hindered by the low speed and complex/costly equipment required to perform rolling at this scale. Therefore, Machine Hammer Peening (MHP) has been studied as an alternative cold work process. MHP can be used robotically, offering greater flexibility and speed, and it can be applied easily to any large-scale geometry. Similarly to rolling, MHP is applied between each deposited layer with the new ECOROLL peening machine and, consequently, it is possible to eliminate texturing and reduce the β-grains size from centimeters long to approximately 1 to 2 mm. This effect is studied for thin and thick walls and no considerable change in grain size is observed, proving the applicability of MHP to large components. The yield strength and ultimate tensile strength increases to 907 MPa and 993 MPa, respectively, while still having excellent ductility. This grain refinement may also improve fatigue life and induce a decrease in crack propagation rate. In this study, it has been shown that MHP is a suitable process for WAAM Ti-6Al-4V applications, can be applied robotically and the grain refinement induced by very small plastic deformations can increase mechanical properties

High cycle fatigue and fatigue crack growth rate in additive manufactured titanium alloys

The Wire + Arc Additive Manufacture (WAAM) process can produce large metal parts in the metre scale, at much higher deposition rate and more efficient material usage compared to the powder bed fusion additive manufacturing (AM) processes. WAAM process also offers lead time reduction and much lower buy-to-fly ratio compared to traditional process methods, e.g. forgings. Research is much needed in the areas of fatigue and fracture performance for qualification and certification of additive manufactured aircraft components. In this study, specimens made of WAAM Ti-6Al-4V alloy were tested and analysed focusing on two key areas of structural integrity and durability: (1) High cycle fatigue and effect of defects: crack initiation at porosity defects was investigated via fatigue and interrupted fatigue-tomography testing performed on specimens with porosity defects purposely embedded in the specimen gauge section. Key findings are as follows. Presence of porosity did not affect the tensile strengths, however both ductility and fatigue strength were significantly reduced. Fatigue life could not be correlated by the applied stress, e.g. in terms of the S-N curves, owing to the different pore sizes. Using the fracture mechanics approach and Murakami’s stress intensity factor equation for pores, good correlation was found between the fatigue life and stress intensity factor range of the crack initiating defects. Predictive methods for fatigue strength reduction were developed taking account of the defect size, location, and distribution. (2) Fatigue crack growth rate: effect of heterogeneous microstructure was investigated via two different material deposition methods and testing two crack orientations. Fatigue crack growth rates were measured for damage tolerance design considerations. Unique microstructure features and their effect on the property anisotropy are discussed

A survey on energy efficiency in metal wire deposition processes

Additive manufacturing (AM), which includes different technologies, allows free-form parts to be produced flexibly by selectively depositing material layer after layer. Among the various AM processes, metal wire deposition (MWD), which uses a metal wire melted by a high-energy source as feedstock, has been found to be suitable for the manufacturing of low-complexity,medium-to-large components at relatively high deposition rates. Some industrial applications have been identified, despite the quality of the as-deposited surfaces, which usually require further finishing operations. Several researches have been focused on process optimization. However, there is still a lack of consolidated knowledge concerning the environmental impact and the energy efficiency of MWD, aspects that are critically surveyed in this paper. First, the unit process level is considered, and an analysis of the needed specific energy input, while the wire flow rate and the deposited materials are varied, is carried out. Second, a framework is proposed to assess the energy requirements under a cradle-to-gate perspective